Nihil est ab omni parte beatum
by Seselt
Summary: Returning for her Eighth Year at Hogwarts, Hermione Granger discovers that the school itself has different plans for her. * time travel *
1. Bubble

Hermione told herself she had arrived early because she was too excited to wait. Resuming her education, finishing what would have been her seventh year and graduating were all important to her. Still important, even after everything.

She had Apparated to Hogsmeade then walked to Hogwarts a week before classes started because she would be attending alone.

Oh, there would be plenty of other students. With Voldemort finally, blessedly certainly dead, everyone could breathe again. Classes would be smaller than before the war but there would be enough people returning for the school to come alive again.

But not Harry or Ron.

She had spent the summer pretending the absence of her friends wouldn't bother her. Ginny would be there and Neville was pretty sure he'd come back. Many others too. She wouldn't be alone.

It wasn't the same, though. Being without the boys felt like she had lost a limb. Bare is the back of a brotherless man, according to the proverb. Her back felt cold as though a threatening wind blew.

She had tried to persuade them without sounding too pathetic but both had their hearts set on becoming Aurors. Charging like lions into the exciting new job. And lacking the final polish that actually finishing their schooling would give them.

Hermione was not going to risk jumping blind into a future career. She wanted to accomplish so much; she had a list feet long. Mucking that up by skiving off was not sensible. However tempting the prospect of moving on with her life, she was going to properly finish this chapter first.

Professor Sprout saw her as she wound up the path from the village and waved to her. Hermione diverged to join the Herbologist, grimacing as her shoes crackled over broken glass hidden in the grass.

"Mind your step." The portly witch cautioned. "The greenhouses are frankly ruined. A combustion hex got into the seed store, smouldering away for days." She sighed. "I had thought we'd managed fairly well. Not unscathed but nothing too dire."

"Who opened the seed store?" Hermione knew enough about blast physics, oddly enough from the disaster documentaries her father liked to watch, to imagine what had happened. The sudden change in pressure differential between the slow fire inside the storage shed and the open air would've been explosive.

"One of the elves, luckily. He blinked away only minus his eyebrows. There's not a window left on this side of the castle." Professor Sprout batted a gloved hand at the ruins. "After that, we checked everything. So much magic, the wards are in shambles."

"Will it be safe for the children?" She felt an old woman at eighteen.

"Hogwarts is healing itself. I dare say it'll make every effort to keep its students out of harm's way." Casting a glance at the young witch, Pomona ventured. "Why don't I show you to the Eighth Year dorm then you can have a look around for yourself."

"Thank you." Hermione didn't confess aloud that she planned to pry into every nook and niche. She was sure the Professor heard what she didn't say.

The wing where the older students would be staying was new. Or rather, it was old but had not been there previously. Whatever the school was doing to fix itself had revealed a great many forgotten rooms.

"There's a statue of Epona in the Divination Tower now. Sybill thinks it's a portent." Professor Sprout opened the carved door and stepped aside so Hermione could admire the high arched ceiling. Dark and strung with tiny lights, it sparkled like the night sky. "I haven't told her about the statue of Pan in the kitchen."

"More a pun than a portent, possibly." Hermione surveyed the ebony furniture, the silver throw rugs and the indigo cushions. "Gothic."

"It is a bit. Feel free to cheer the place up if you fancy. There'll be about a dozen of you to start. We're hoping for more. No one is sure about anything yet." She had written to all her Hufflepuffs personally to reassure them and their parents. "There've been a great many transfers to Beauxbatons."

"Not surprising. I heard a lot of Muggle-borns have left the magical world entirely." She couldn't blame them. But having fought so hard to prove herself as a witch, nothing could make her leave now.

It seemed Professor Sprout had nothing to say to that and made her departure with a sad smile. Hermione sat down on one of the chaises. She slid around a little trying to get comfortable and wondering whether languishing was necessary. Maybe if she swooned the pretentious sofa would feel less unwelcoming.

For no particularly sensible reason, Hermione flopped down with her legs trailing off the chaise in an artistic faint. Not a success, even with a cushion wedged under her hip. She got up and went to investigate the bedrooms.

Wizarding etiquette was such that once you were of age, what you did in private was entirely your concern. There were heavy locks on the doors of each suite but no wards and the rooms were ranged together along a single hallway.

It was probably paranoia that made her pick a room further down the hall. There was possibly some psychological study that would reassure her she wasn't being unduly nervous. She still felt silly not picking the first room.

The fourth door on the right led into an airy chamber with dove grey walls, two large arched windows and a massive oak desk. Two doors concealed behind bookcases led to the bedroom and the bathroom respectively.

Hermione made herself unpack everything she had brought in both her book-bag and the small beaded bag she took everywhere with her. She was trying very hard not to be obsessive about carrying the dainty purse with her at all times. Even when she thought she had left it behind, she would often find it in a pocket or strung on her belt.

As part of convincing her subconscious the war was over, she had emptied the bag completely one day in summer. Laying everything out in the Burrow garden, Hermione took stock of what had been her existence. Her first thought had been 'I picked up a lot of stuff', which was an acceptable thought to have.

Her second thought was 'I know what else I need' and she had been halfway through composing a mental list before she caught herself. So she had returned everything she had borrowed, threw out or donated anything she wouldn't need at Hogwarts and cleaned the rest.

Only then did she allow herself a trip to Diagon Alley. The Weasleys had gone with her, enjoying a day out full of ordinary. Change still felt raw. Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour was derelict and Ollivanders hadn't reopened yet.

"I'm not running a bazaar." Hermione said to the clutter leftover after she had filled the wardrobe and bookcases. The desk was at capacity too. She had over-prepared, which did not surprise her. Truly believing she wouldn't need to run and rough it again was... "Fucking difficult."

Muttering to herself, Hermione put back into the beaded bag all the 'useful' objects she had brought with her that were unnecessary to a schoolgirl. A sane schoolgirl, anyway.

Now she had a normal room in which to do normal, ordinary scholastic activities. And no one needed to know she had snuck off to a Muggle camping store to buy a probably-not-sensible amount of supplies.

Shaking her head at herself, Hermione left her room to take a walk around the school to familiarise herself with any changes to the layout. If anything was going to upset her, she wanted to find out before the other students arrived so she wouldn't embarrass herself in public.

It hurt. It hurt to remember. The elves had scoured the stones clean but she could still see the blood. Hermione walked the corridors, deliberately retracing her steps during the battle. At least the smell was gone; the stink of smoke and curses and fear.

The Great Hall was empty. Walking into the centre of the cavernous chamber, Hermione felt her heart rate spike. Just adrenaline. She consciously breathed slowly trying to ride out her body's fight or flight response.

She jumped when a door creaked, whirling around with her wand in her hand and already casting a Shield Charm. To protect her from rusty hinges. Hermione stamped over to the door, opened and shut it, rattled the knob and then noticed the change in air pressure.

The witch took three quick steps back. She watched a whirl of dust spin across the flagstones as an old ward discharged itself harmlessly into the ambient. Magic was almost a living thing. You could compare it to electricity or water. It wanted to balance itself, to move to a lower energy state.

And apparently frightening the daylights out of passers-by was a by-product. Hermione sighed, putting her wand away. The massive release of magic during the battle had destabilised the fabric of the school. It would take time for Hogwarts to bleed off the excess.

Hermione resumed her walk feeling that she needed some air. She went down to the lake and picked up a water-smoothed pebble to skip across the water. Her first one jumped five times, a fluke that made her laugh. She bent to find another when she noticed she was not alone.

"Good afternoon, Granger." The pale, brown haired boy sitting under the tree was polite. Hermione straightened and stared at him trying to place his face.

"Nott." She realised with surprise. The rising embarrassment of having forgotten an acquaintance's name ebbed suddenly. She didn't know him well. She didn't want to know him. Or rather, he had never wanted to know her. "You were arrested."

"I was." Theo confirmed, noting the instinctive way the witch shifted her balance. Not to run, no. She was standing ready to fight though all she had in her hand was a small round stone. "Probation, subject to attendance and supervision at Hogwarts."

"How many Slytherins are coming back?" Hermione asked, aware this was already the longest conversation she'd had with the pure-blood.

"Not many." He didn't explain why and she didn't ask. Theo expected her to leave. The tension between them made the air taste like ozone.

"What are you reading?" It was a civil question because she was going to have a civil damn year with her peers. Idle conversation and networking, not paranoia. That was the plan so Hermione made the effort to seem casual.

"The Decline of Pagan Magic, by Bagshot." Theo placidly displayed the cover of the book as though he had never had his library ransacked by Aurors or had been forced to justify every title contained therein.

"No, you're not. I've read that book." Hermione took a step forward then paused, aware she was accusing him. Carefully matter-of-fact, she clarified. "The illusion on the cover is good but Decline of Pagan Magic has red thread in the binding. Yours has blue. Bathilda Bagshot insists on red. She switched publishers when they cocked up a print run."

"You truly are a swot." He was impressed. Theo dismissed the charm. "Nex Hex: Venoms and Antivenins. It's on the Restricted List."

"Not if you're enrolled or have applied for a medical apprenticeship." Her reply was automatic. Hermione had checked, as she too owned a copy of the book. "Madam Pomfrey has the forms in her office. The same applies for the Vivlio Toxinon, doggy translation from Greek notwithstanding."

"You don't have to try so hard, Granger. I can see your fingers twitching." Theo agreed with her on the shoddy transliteration of the fascinating book on toxins, but seeing her fidget trying not to curse him was unpleasant.

"I'm not." Hermione looked down at her hand still holding the pebble. She let go of it then stared as the whitish stone hung in the air, rotating slowly. In her peripheral vision she saw Nott jump to his feet and she flung out an arm. "Stay back! It's a discharge effect."

"Get away from the damn thing!" Theo felt his gaze begin to blur as the magic around them effervesced. "Granger, step back slowly."

"I can't move." The witch tried shifting her feet but they felt stuck as though the air had suddenly thickened. She looked around, trying to find the nexus of the release then saw something alarming. "The water's rising!"

Sucked up by the change in magical background energy, the surface of Black Lake was bulging upwards. As Hermione watched, the distortion increased in height like a storm surge. She tried to move her arm to draw her wand but she was mired.

Theo could move. Certainly, he could have run. Instead, he pulled out his wand and lunged towards Hermione, grabbing her arm as he cast a water-breathing spell on them both. All the while hoping no one was spying on them as he was specifically banned from using magic on other students.

The dome of water collapsed with a thunderclap, swamping the pair on the shore. The force of it bowled them over, swirled them around then spat them out on the grass beyond the beach. Magic crackled, scintilla dazzling as though they were in an aurora before winking out leaving them in darkness.

"Bugger." Theo remarked, blinking as lights danced behind his eyes.

"I agree." Hermione coughed and tried to push herself upright. She wasn't sure which way was up. There seemed to be too much sideways so she lay down again on the wet lawn. "Do you smell something?"

"Lightning." He agreed, rolling onto his back with a squelch of his sodden sweater. Screwing his eyes shut, Theo tried to keep his rebellious lunch in its proper place. "Or ozone, rather. I smelled it before."

"We'd best go tell someone." She got onto her knees, hair dripping into her face. Hermione felt like she'd been dredged up from the bottom of the lake rather than washed by it. Some sort of tepid Pre-Raphaelite heroine.

"I'll let you do that. I'll stand behind you and nod at the right moments." Theo had returned to finish his education because the alternatives were much less pleasant. He did not want to draw attention to himself.

"Honestly, why am I always the one..." Hermione stopped. No longer dazzled, she had realised something. The sparkling motes above them were not the firefly residue of the magical outburst. "The stars are out."

Opening his eyes, the pure-blood wizard stared at the constellations above them. They were the correct stars for this latitude, which allayed a visceral panic that they had Apparated. Being on a leash to the Dark Lord had left Theo with a lingering dread of magical transportation.

"It's full dark." He turned his head towards the west. The mountains made it difficult to judge astronomical twilight but all of what he could see was velvet black. There was no moon but constellation Delphinus was at about forty degrees to the horizon. "Approximately ten o'clock post meridiem."

"The stasis effect could account for a temporal dilation." She rubbed her temples. "Or we could have been lying unconscious for hours and simply not been found."

"Forgive the innuendo, but how wet are you? I'm saturated." He sat up, too shaky yet to salvage his dignity.

"Soaking." Hermione said primly, hiding a wry smile. It was a useful question all sniggering aside. "We can't have lain in the open and not dried off a little." She cast a drying charm on herself. Now she just looked dishevelled. "Still have your wand?"

"Yes, thankfully." Theo found the length of walnut half up his sleeve. It was a new wand, at Ministry insistence. He had only recently adjusted to it. He cast a drying charm as well then sniffed at a sleeve. "Delightful eau du lac."

"Regnilda's Refresher gets rid of the dank smell." Flicking her wand, the charm effected both of them and a fair-sized circle of grass eliminating the fishy scent. "Doesn't stop you being tracked, unfortunately."

"There's a series of Romanian hunting charms that work well. Specifically made to foil werewolves." As they seemed to be chatting, Theo ventured the information as he negotiated his way to vertical. He could feign normality with the best of them.

"Would've been handy." Hermione patted herself down then got to her feet. Stumbling a little, she bumped into him and flinched when he caught her elbow. "Don't." She hissed. "Let go."

"My apologies." Theo said stiffly, releasing his grip.

"I don't like being restrained." The explanation was unnecessary. They both knew why. "It's nothing personal."

"Of course not." The starlight was sufficient to illuminate his smirk.

"Don't take that tone with me." Hermione snapped back. "I've had to put up with your sneers for years. If I had a problem with you, believe me, I would tell you."

"At length, with notes." Theo retorted, regretting it as soon as he had spoken. Baiting the brains of the Potter Triumvirate was unwise if he wanted to go unregarded.

"Children, if I could intrude for a moment." The voice called out, interrupting Hermione's burgeoning diatribe. Witch and wizard turned in the direction of the approaching stranger, instinctively standing back-to-back. Neither had fought alongside the other but both had fought too often.

The speaker muttered a spell, causing the light on the end of his wand to expand into a soft golden radiance. He stood before them in jodhpurs and a tweed coat with a pinned up left sleeve. He might have passed for a Muggle except for the curled toes on his boots.

"Silvanus Kettleburn, Professor and dragon-wrangler." The middle-aged wizard smiled without showing his teeth, keeping his stance open as though he expected the youngsters to spook and flee. "And who are you?"

Theo and Hermione glanced at each other. The much chewed Professor Kettleburn had retired in their third year. This version of the same was younger. About twenty years younger.


	2. Babble

Her first flaring instinct was to say 'Penelope Clearwater', an urge she quashed. It hadn't worked the first time and if they were temporally displaced using a name with any sort of connection to a soon-to-be living person could skew the timeline.

So think of something! The sensible voice in her head that had got her out of so much trouble almost shouted. Pick something from Shakespeare, you'll be able to remember that.

"Ophelia." Hermione said, with an attempt at assertiveness. She glanced at Theo trying to convey the need for concealment. Until they knew more they couldn't risk saying too much.

"Orpheus Varinen." He spoke with the adamantine confidence of a pure-blood. Lifting his left hand, Theo showed the faux-Kettleburn his signet ring with the crest of the House of Nott etched into onyx. The heraldic details were not clear in the soft spell-light but it would be obvious that it was a manorial seal. "My sister and I should be expected."

"Well, you're not." Kettleburn said nonchalantly. "And put those wands away. You're not scions of the manor here. If you're enrolled as students, you'd best rein it in a bit."

Years of struggle had left Hermione with a strong wish not to do what she was told. Snape had kindled that defiance and Umbridge had cemented it. But refusing outright to stand down in these circumstances would only draw more attention. She slid her wand up her sleeve, a harmless action that made Kettleburn raise an eyebrow.

"Is there a problem?" The witch asked, wondering if they were hallucinating. It was possible she was alone in a vision although her staid interaction with Theo made her fairly sure he wasn't a figment of her mind. Kettleburn was starting to get on her nerves, though. What had he noticed?

"Not a one." He answered, undaunted by snappish snobs who thought they could swagger about resplendent in their family name. "You'll need to speak with the Headmaster. He'll sort you out."

Now Theo glanced at Hermione trying to spontaneously master telepathy. He covertly rubbed his left forearm and met the Muggle-born's furious glare with a stony face.

"There is no need to disturb Professor Dumbledore. He is a very busy person." Hermione spoke in her smuggest voice, imitating Pansy Parkinson. "We will report to Professor Slughorn. He is acquainted with our family."

Short of using the Imperius Curse or physically hauling them to the Headmaster's Office, there was little Kettleburn could do in face of their non-compliance. He frowned then gave them terse directions to the Potions Professor.

Theo and Hermione marched into Hogwarts, heading towards the dungeons until they were certain they were not being followed. By mutual tacit agreement, they ducked into a classroom. He locked the door while she cast a Muffliato Charm.

"You're Marked?" Hermione's wand was not dramatically pressed to the Slytherin's throat. She knew better than that. She was two paces away and ready to cast at the slightest twitch.

"My consent was not required." Theo kept his arms loosely at his sides, his breathing even and his voice steady. He had dined with Bellatrix Lestrange, who'd hexed people for using the wrong fork. Granger might be angry but she was sane. "Father was so proud."

"You're as pathetic as Malfoy, hiding behind his daddy's coat tails." She lowered her arm, indescribably angry but unwilling to lash out. "Why didn't any of you just say no? If you'd gone to Dumbledore, he could've protected you."

"Like he protected Snape?" He didn't move. They weren't arguing, not exactly. It sounded like she had wanted to ask that question for a long time. Granger truly did not understand.

But she put her wand away.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Hermione let her breath out. "I didn't refuse because of your Mark. I don't want to see the Headmaster. Because of Snape. And Harry. And Harry's mum. You're right. Dumbledore didn't protect anyone."

"Slughorn won't be any more use. He's venal." Theo knew it was petty but he resented not being invited to the Slug Club. Being discounted so thoroughly for his heritage had raised uncomfortable questions about the worth of purity.

"Before we do anything, speak to anyone, we need to confirm when we are. This could be a short-term bubble. A localised distortion. I hope so." She brushed her hair out of her face, holding it back with a silent Sticking Charm. "The further we go from Hogwarts, the more we can be sure."

"If we are in the Seventies, the Vanishing Cabinet would be undamaged. While Knockturn Alley isn't the most savoury of places, it is far enough away to test the hypothesis." Theo was methodical. There was no sense in becoming alarmed until they had something to be alarmed about. A random temporal bubble would pop as soon as they moved away from the magical source.

"The cabinet should be on the first floor, in one of the Transfiguration classrooms." Hermione might've shied away from using the Vanishing Cabinet given what trouble it had brought, except it was efficient, quick and close. They could quietly slip away before they did something to cause a paradox.

Their luck held in avoiding any more Hogwarts staff. The cabinet was there, intact, and their departure was done as easily as shutting the door behind them. The pair stepped out into Borgin and Burkes circumspectly. It was late enough for the shop to be closed but given its clientele, there could be private transactions after-hours.

Not wanting to risk a light, they shuffled through the shelves and display cabinets towards the door. Touching nothing in the dark was not easy. Hermione trod on Theo's foot when he stopped to cast a detection spell on the door knob.

"Sorry." She murmured. "Is it enchanted?"

"It's not even locked." Theo touched the handle with one finger. Nothing happened. He turned the knob, opening the door without a creak. That was more alarming to either of them than any security would have been. They left hastily, walking quickly out of Knockturn Alley and not stopping until they reached Flourish and Blotts.

Which had a display in the window that made both of them groan.

Coming Soon!

Not to be Missed!

Not to be Seen!

The Invisible Book of Invisibility, reserve your copy today.

"The shipment vanished early in 1977. I asked." Theo confessed his curiosity to one of the few people who would not mock him for it. "When I bought my First Year books, I suggested to the clerk they cast dust charms systematically and search for the books that way."

"I thought of that too. Far better than wringing their hands over the financial loss." Hermione agreed, happy to talk about inconsequential things while trying to rationalise their first piece of evidence. "Let's go into Muggle London. The pubs will still be open. We can get a newspaper there."

Theo didn't argue, though he did grimace when Hermione led him out of Diagon Alley and down side streets until they found a garish drinking den. It reeked of beer and tobacco, and was so Muggle that Theo found it hard not to sneer.

Hermione went directly to the bar, picked up a Daily Mirror and with gritted teeth checked the date. 26th August 1976. She brought it over to Theo, who was standing by the door with a face like a health inspector who'd just seen a second cockroach.

He nodded. Hermione put the newspaper down on a nearby table and they walked out into the night. Traffic was loud enough to make conversation difficult so neither of them spoke until they came to a little park. They sat down on a bench and tried to find something useful to say.

"My parents would've just bought their house. We could go there. They both work quite long hours. If we're careful, they wouldn't even notice us." Hermione drew in a shaky breath. "Staying in the Muggle world might be safer until we figure out a way to undo this."

"Getting out of Britain would be better. Anything we do here could compromise the timeline. We could be un-born." Theo thought grimly of how delighted his father would be to meet him. The Dark Lord would be ecstatic. Despite the warm night, the young wizard shivered. "We have to get back to our proper time."

"When Eloise Mintumble returned from 1402, she aged five centuries instantly." Although suddenly being forty years old wouldn't be a crisis, it would cause a large crimp in her career plans. "We need to find out how this happened."

"That would mean returning to Hogwarts." They couldn't trust anyone. Except each other, and they didn't. Theo shifted on the bench to look directly at Granger. There was a scar on her neck he had not noticed before. "I don't want to change what happened. I don't want my side to win."

"That's good." Hermione said lightly, staring at the park fence. "Because if you did, I'd have to kill you."

"Have you killed?" He hadn't, not directly. He'd tortured and watched Muggles die but he had not with his own hand murdered anyone. Theo cherished that distinction

"I have." She did not explain any further. She hadn't used the Killing Curse. That was important. She hadn't corrupted her magic with the death of another person. "I don't want to risk anyone else dying. We were lucky. It's terrible to say so, considering who we lost, but it could've been much worse."

"So we agree. No tampering. No tweaking." Theo held out his hand.

"No tampering. No tweaking." They shook on it. Hermione grimaced. "It's not going to be easy. We might be better off assuming we're marooned here and hiding somewhere."

"I don't want to be a Muggle. I don't want to live my life as someone I'm not." When his fingers shifted towards his Dark Mark, he covered the gesture by fiddling with his signet ring.

"You were pretty quick with the fake name. Why Varinen?" She chose not to notice the small movement out of sympathy. The scar on her arm itched so much it was difficult not to scratch it down to the bone.

"It was my mother's maiden name." Theo replied without emphasis. It was common knowledge at Hogwarts he had always been able to see thestrals because of his mother. "Why Ophelia? A little melodramatic."

"I'm not good at improvising. I was thinking of being washed out of the lake. There's a painting by Millais, of Ophelia floating in dark water." Hermione stretched out her legs and rubbed the worn knee of her jeans. "We don't have to live as Muggles to avoid notice. If we go to the States or Australia, we could hide among magical folk."

"That'd be slow torment. Knowing what will happen, waiting for it and doing nothing." He shook his head. "We'd go mad by inches."

The witch was silent for several minutes staring at the cars driving by. They couldn't stay, not deliberately. Nott was right. The temptation to meddle would always be there, niggling at them.

"We could use a sleep spell, or a series of them, to keep ourselves in suspended animation. It'd be difficult but we could find a way. Twenty-two years isn't so long." It was an option Hermione felt obliged to share. It also felt like cowardice.

"Unless we stayed awake in shifts, maintaining the spell on the other, we'd have to use a ritual. How much do you trust a timing charm to wake us up before the sustaining magic fades? It only takes days to die of dehydration." A lot could go wrong with such complicated magic. Long-term stasis spells had to be done extremely carefully. In his opinion it was too risky.

"So, it's back to Hogwarts."

"We could stay in Diagon Alley and surreptitiously visit the school. Or in Hogsmeade, if we had to. Sneaking in isn't so difficult." Using the Vanishing Cabinet frequently invited notice from exactly the people he most wanted to avoid. Death Eaters visited Borgin and Burkes regularly.

"In the middle of a war? How long would it take for someone to notice we're skulking around?" Hogsmeade was too small a village for two strangers to go unremarked. Even if they changed their disguises regularly, they'd be discovered eventually. "One look at your arm and you'd be carted off to Azkaban."

"That's assuming the Phoenixes find us first." Facing a sham trial then Dementors would certainly keep him from altering the future. Theo found that path to martyrdom did not appeal.

"We can't be taken alive by any of Tom's friends. Not even a master Occlumens could keep him out under torture." She had managed to lie under Crucio but Bellatrix had not tried to invade her mind.

"Tom?" One did not casually refer to the Dark Lord by his first name, at least not twice.

"There could be a taboo on his pseudonym. He's strong now." She saw the reasonable explanation did not satisfy him. "The 'He-Who' nonsense makes him into a bogeyman. I helped kill him piece by piece. I can call him whatever I want."

"Valid point." Theo studied the Muggle-born witch. Confident and determined with her rashness tempered by experience. A worthy ally. "The Varinens are a pure-blood family, originally from Finland though my mother's father eloped to France. He was disowned."

"Harsh."

"He broke off his arranged marriage, caused a huge scandal and shamed the family." He didn't know much more than that as it was not discussed. Ever. "His family make the Blacks look as slack as the Weasleys."

"Watch it. Ron and I are sort of dating." Hermione cautioned. She'd had a few misunderstandings with Molly but the Weasleys had been very good to her.

"Sort of?" Theo raised a practised eyebrow.

"We aren't not dating." Her mouth twisted wryly. "Harry and Ron aren't coming back to finish their schooling." She stopped. "Won't be? Would not have been coming back? Fuck, this is not something I want to deal with right now."

"Then concentrate on the problem in front of you. That's what I did. One task at a time." Feeble optimism had carried him through one war.

"Right." Hermione inhaled slowly. "Right, yes." She sat up straight. "Your paternal grandfather eloped. Who with?"

"A money-hungry tramp who left him as soon as it became clear that not even an heir would soften great-grandfather into reinstating his son." Theo didn't like airing his family's dirty linen but if they were going to pretend to be Varinens, Hermione needed to know. "Blaise and I had a lot in common in that regard. His mother and my grandmother were women of many husbands."

"Does your mother have any obscure cousins who were also disowned? My French is excellent. My Finnish is non-existent." Kettleburn had got a good look at them. They would have to stick with the names they had given. "We can't ask the wife of a Death Eater to vouch for us, so we'll need to be very distant cousins."

"My mother turned fourteen in May of this year. She will marry my father a week after her seventeenth birthday and have me nine months after that." He provided the information as though he was reading from a biography. Facts, nothing personal.

"Your dad..." Hermione bit her tongue before she said something rude.

"Is thirty-four years older than my mother. Not an extraordinary age difference in pure-blood society." There had still been comments on his father marrying a girl barely out of school. "It was a good match, a very good match considering how poor grandfather was."

"Poor enough we could bribe him into helping us?" She asked, to avoid commenting on selling a teenager to a man three times her age.

"Certainly, if we had any money." Theo patted his trouser pockets. "Skint, and I can't access any of the Nott vaults."

"I have money. The Ministry was ridiculously generous." Trying to assuage their own guilt, Hermione thought bitterly.

"Your wand won't work at Gringotts either."

"I didn't put the money in my vault. I don't actually have one. I closed it when Harry, Ron and I started hunting horcruxes. I emptied my Muggle bank accounts too. Ron didn't have any money and Harry never plans anything." She shrugged. "Do we show up at your grandfather's house with a sack of Galleons and say 'Hi, dad'?"

"'Hello, father' would be more polite." A chuckle, mostly born of tension, escaped Theo's mouth. The incongruity of their situation was hilarious. "He did have an eye for the ladies. We could be his bastards. I think he'd acknowledge us to stick two fingers up at his own father."

"Are you prepared to lie to your grandfather?" Hermione couldn't think of a tactful way of asking so she said it outright.

"I saw him once, at my mother's funeral. Father paid him to go away and he did." Theo stood up from the bench. "We can Apparate to Caen tonight. You can Side-Along with me if you've not been there before."

"My parents and I toured Normandy." She got up and made sure everything in her pockets was well shoved down so she didn't lose it en route. "Let's hope this doesn't bite us in the arse."


	3. Babel

They arrived near the entrance of the new Museum of Fine Arts in the bailey of the Norman castle. That each had visualised this part of the city caused a brief moment of awkwardness until they realised that as they had both been most familiar with the cultural precinct they didn't need to explain.

Caen was more provincial than Hermione remembered though no city looked its exciting best on a muggy Thursday night.

"Will he even be up? We should come back in the morning." The witch kept her voice low, conscious of being foreign. It didn't really matter as there would be plenty of English tourists in town. They wouldn't stand out but she had that hunted feeling again.

"French wizards keep late hours in summer. Easier than contending with hordes of Muggles infesting the place." Theo knew his grandfather's address from the many letters his mother had written. There had been few replies and whenever his family had visited France, Teuvo Varinen had not been 'at home' to receive them.

"Your bias is showing." Hermione was not prepared to let 'infesting' pass without comment.

"I visited the Place de la Concorde in July. I couldn't see the fountains for the crowds." Theo had been jostled, barged, accosted and would have been pick-pocketed except for a security hex on his clothing.

"Paris has two million people not counting the millions more in the suburbs." She thought the total population of the Parisian metropolitan area was about eleven million but wasn't sure so didn't cite an exact number. "French people in the largest public park in France can stand in front of whatever damn fountain they like."

"So many?" He marvelled at the number though he did not doubt her estimate was accurate. "No wonder they all looked harassed. I had to share a dorm with four other boys. That was a crowd and a penance. Goyle's socks were enough to make a harpy retch."

"I know." Hermione grimaced at the memory of the Polyjuice incident. "Harry scrubbed his feet for days."

Theo paused at an intersection, trying to recall if Rue de Geole became Avenue du Six Juin or if it was the one that was blocked off. His mother had described Caen's small magical enclave as being between the Chateau and the Orne. He knew where the river was in relation to the castle but quite a few streets had changed names.

"It amazes me you were never punished for stealing from the Potion stores." Nothing had ever been said officially but Myrtle had told Malfoy all about it afterwards and he had spread the tale.

"Me too. Harry got away with so much. I still worry about a karmic debt." Hermione peered up and down the wide street. "What are you looking for?"

"The magical bastide is quite small, less than five hundred people. Mother said it overlooked a park." Theo had not expected quite so much Caen. The streetlights made the buildings look haggard, aging them until it was hard to navigate by historical provenance. "When we toured France, Father Apparated us."

"There's a church that way, I think. It has a garden and there's another across the road. My parents and I had a lovely lunch in a café by the presbytery." She hoped she wasn't confusing Caen with Rouen. "We might as well wander around. If it gets too late, we can make camp then ask for directions in the morning."

"Am I going to look foolish if I ask you if you have a tent?" Theo inquired as he set off along the road towards the river rather than second guess himself.

"Not as foolish as I feel still carrying one around." Hermione admitted. They walked in silence until they came to a down-at-heel stone church. She studied the pointed arched doorway and the carved figures on the gate. "I think this is it. I remember the cracks. Eglise Saint Jean has been pummelled a bit since the twelfth century."

The pair headed along the church block and there was a green space behind with another across the road. A road which did not bend like the one that ran near parallel on the other side of the church. Once they noticed that, Theo and Hermione found the entrance to the bastide easily.

Caen's magical quarter was a paved courtyard hemmed on four side with arcades with several storeys above capped by Mansard roofs. The buildings were all made of local creamy yellow limestone but much cleaner than the Muggle side. Lights glowed in most of the open windows and people clustered around tables in the courtyard chatting and drinking.

"That's him." Theo tilted his chin subtly towards a sandy haired man in his early forties. He was of middle height and lean, his faded robes pushed back off his shoulders as he poured himself a glass of wine.

"We can walk away if you don't feel up to speaking to him." Hermione let her gaze drift across the crowd. Theo's grandfather was sitting with two men slightly older than him and two women quite a bit younger.

"Fuck him. Let's cause a scene." His mother had wept because of that man. Theo strode forward. He bowed politely to the older men as they were the nominal hosts of the table. One of them waved his hand idly, giving permission for the young man to speak. "Pardonnez-moi, messieurs et mesdames, je voudrais dire a mon pere bon soir."

With crisp arrogance, Theo inclined his head to the fair haired wizard. That got him the scene he wanted. One of the witches flung her wine in Varinen's face, cursed him in the Normandy dialect and stormed off. The other witch eyed her drink, finished it then drew her wand.

It took both older wizards and Hermione intruding to persuade the offended witch that she did not want to turn the Finn into tripe. Through the tumult, Theo maintained his composure and answered politely the volley of questions put to him.

The drama ended with Teuvo Varinen, dripping wine, herding them into his tiny apartment and shutting the door softly. He cast a quietening charm on a curtained doorway before glaring at Hermione and an unrepentant Theo.

"You have some nerve introducing yourselves like that." Teuvo berated them in French. "Whoever your mother is, I did nothing unkind to her. She did not tell me of you so if you think I cast her off into the gutter, you are wrong."

"But you do not seem surprised to see us." Theo remarked, not looking towards the curtain. It was likely that his mother was sleeping in the room beyond. He kept his voice down so he would not wake her.

"Witches are not always careful." The pure-blood spoke bitterly. "Especially not around wealthy heirs. Every few years I receive a letter from someone claiming to be an old mistress or the child of one. You two are the first to intrude personally."

"Contraception is your responsibility too." Hermione said between her teeth. Theo's change in tack had taken her by surprise. She'd been inclining towards sympathy with his grandfather, most of which curdled at the 'witches' comment.

"I would rather risk a few bastards than my virility." He inspected her frankly then did the same to Theo before flicking his wand at the younger wizard. "Consanguineo."

Theo glowed a bright blue, indicating close kinship, which surprised Varinen enough that he didn't repeat the simple familial charm on Hermione. He put his wand away and sagged a little.

"I can't offer you much. Karina's school fees take most of what I have. She's legitimate so she deserves the queen's share." There was steel now in his voice. He would not allow them to threaten his acknowledged child. "If you want money, you could plead your case with my father. I wish you luck with the old bugger."

"We don't want money." Theo controlled himself. Only a slight thinning of his lips gave away the turmoil behind his facade. "We want you to acknowledge us. That's all. Your seal on a piece of parchment. Surely you can manage that."

Teuvo Varinen could manage that. He went to his desk and wrote a short letter to attest that Orpheus and Ophelia Varinen were his natural children, giving them such rights as would be granted to them by the head of his House.

"Which aren't many." He handed Theo the parchment. "Attinctura stains my heirs as well as myself. I have a brother who is bound to have produced something to inherit from our father, making your prospects bleak." His eyes strayed to the curtain. "Leave now. You may give my contempt to your mother, whoever she is."

Hermione did not give Theo a chance to respond. She took his arm and dragged him out of the apartment, towing him to the courtyard before risking releasing him.

"Where do you want to go now?" Her tone was neutral, assessing. If he was going to lose his temper she didn't want to provoke him.

"Away from here." Theo swallowed his feelings. He should have prepared more. He shouldn't have assumed because he'd never met the man he wouldn't react. That just talking to him would make him see red. As reckless as a Gryffindor, whereas the Gryffindor beside him briskly got on with business.

Hermione Apparated them to her parents' backyard. She could get home in her sleep, a Side-Along was no trouble. The cracking noise of their arrival seemed thunderous. A neighbour's dog started barking but no one stirred in the house.

"Homenum Revelio." Hermione murmured. Nothing. Her parents weren't home yet. She let herself and Theo inside, relocking the door behind them. The kitchen had a second-hand table and mismatched chairs but the refrigerator was fully stocked. "Hungry?"

"Yes, thank you." Theo sat down at the table noting but not caring that it rocked. Hermione took a little of everything, doubled it with a spell and made sandwiches. So long as no one filched any of the carefully rationed sweets she doubted her parents would notice the missing food.

"They've just moved in so only the master bedroom will be furnished. Take one of the empty rooms upstairs. I'll take the other." That probably didn't have to be said but after spending months in a tent with two teenage boys, she liked to have boundaries. "My parents will leave before nine in the morning."

Theo nodded and finished his sandwich, heading upstairs as soon as he was done. Hermione cleaned and replaced the plates then went up to the spare room. She cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and a Cushioning Charm on the floor. Certainly she could've unpacked a camp bed from her beaded bag but it had been a long day. She wanted to sleep and wake up when she should be.

She didn't.

Hermione lay on her back staring at the popcorn ceiling and listening to her coherent and competent parents rattle around in the bathroom. She blinked rapidly, recalling their blank faces as she lifted the Memory Charm, their stuttering movements and puzzled expressions.

Margaret and William Granger were in St Mungo's beginning the long process to recover from the deep Obliviate she had used on them. They would be mostly fine eventually. The Healers assured her she need only remain positive and all would be well.

There was no need to cry, Hermione told herself sternly. No need, as there was exactly nothing she could do to help. And no need to fear the worst. Although her parents as Muggles had very low resistance to magic they were in the best of hands. They were being well looked after. Just like Neville's parents.

It was a relief when she heard the car pull out of the driveway. When first married, her mum and dad had routinely worked eighty hours a week in order to repay student debt, cover the mortgage and save a nest egg. They were so tired, she and Theo might pass unnoticed for days. Hermione got up and knocked on the second bedroom door.

"Nott, they're gone. Do you want the bathroom?" She asked through the door.

"I would rather get a move on." The wizard stepped out fully dressed and clean shaven. His skin had the surface flush of a recently used Scourgify. "I saw what your parents keep in their washroom when I snuck out to use the toilet. I would like not to be here should they return suddenly."

Giving him an odd look, Hermione investigated the tiny upstairs W.C. She laughed. Her parents had an en-suite so they had evidently decided to keep their training dummies out of sight in the loo. Disquietingly realistic plastic heads and jaw moulds were stacked neatly alongside spare dental equipment in sterile packaging.

"They're dentists. Like doctors, who clean and repair people's teeth. It's a five year university course." Hermione explained, trying not to snigger at him.

"It looked like they were grave-robbers." Theo frowned at her amusement. "Not something I wanted to discover in the small hours in a strange house."

"I can see that." Her merriment ebbed. "I'm going to have a proper shower then we'll plan." He nodded agreement, leaving the witch to her ablutions.

Downstairs, Theo poked about to assuage his own curiosity about Muggles. There were a great many books in the house as well as static photographs and cardboard boxes. The living room had a velvet sofa, somewhat rubbed at the edges, which he sat upon to read a glossy tome.

He had chosen it because of the photograph of the amphibian. One of the many species of poison dart frogs bright yellow and black, the colour so vivid for a moment he thought there might be a preserved skin on the dust cover.

The photography was astounding and while the Latin of the species names seemed clumsy, the account written by the biologist who had led the field team was fascinating. Theo was so engrossed by the native fauna of the Amazon basin Hermione had to clear her throat loudly to get his attention.

"We'll need to have our stories straight." She sat down on the sofa with a cushion's breadth between them and handed him a fountain pen and notebook. "If we want into Hogwarts, we are going to have to lie."

"Few people will have the authority to demand answers from us. As Seventh Years, we can ignore our juniors and sneer at our classmates." Theo was not naturally sociable and saw no need to exert himself to sow falsehood.

"Few is not none." Hermione didn't want to get too involved with the 'locals' of the timeline either. "We'll need to apply to Dumbledore and deal fairly closely with our Head of House. I'm hoping we can both get into Ravenclaw. That way, we can research all we like without anyone thinking anything of it."

"That shouldn't be too difficult. The Sorting Hat considered me for Ravenclaw." He expected he would've been happier personally in the intellectual House but all Notts were Slytherins. "Ultimately it was my lack of originality that decided it. A bit galling."

"The same for me. I got into Gryffindor on nerve, leaving me with the impression the Hat thought I was a parvenu." Her life would have been very different in blue and bronze. "Professor Flitwick became, becomes the Head of House this year. This time thing is playing merry Hell with my verb tenses."

"Once we decide on our history, we can cast minor recollection charms on ourselves. The first thing we say will be in accordance with the lies. Less likely to be tripped up by surprise questions." He hated surprises.

"Better to cast them on each other so the charms last better under stress." That was the reason why she had hexed Harry's face rather than urging him to do it to himself. "Pretty much anything we need to cast, we should swap. If we haven't bewitched ourselves, we can deny knowing anything about the spell itself." Hermione took a deep breath. "Which brings me to the first complication in our backstory."

She pushed up her left sleeve to show him the livid wound, still red at the edges. Healing spells had barely got it to scab over. The cursed word would take years to mend. It would always be an obvious scar proclaiming to the world her filthy blood.


	4. Bevel

"Madam Lestrange, I presume." Theo was acquainted with the mad witch's handiwork. Hermione nodded. He reached a hand tentatively towards her and she allowed him to take her wrist and turn her arm so he could get a better look. "No cosmetic charm is going to cover it."

"All the variant Disillusionment charms we tried slide off it too. Bill brought over every unguent the dragon trainers use. No luck there either, and it burns through mundane make-up." She felt better for talking about it. Much better that he hadn't winced or looked away.

"Please take my word for it that even if the skin is flensed, the cuts will still be visible. The curse goes down to the bone." Releasing her wrist, he waited for her to ask how he knew that. She didn't. Instead, she opened her notebook and showed him a page, several pages, of words.

"I can't cover it up or make it go away but I can add to it." Hermione kept her voice steady. She had been thinking about this for a long time. "I can't curse myself. The cuts would heal normally."

Theo did her the courtesy of not asking if she was sure. He looked through all the words she had compiled that could incorporate the scar's lines. Changing a 'u' into an 'e' required some finesse but it could be done. An 'o' into a 'g' was easy. The kerning would be more difficult though an obviously hand-inscribed phrase gave some leeway.

"It took me a while." She needed to talk about it and he was listening. "I didn't want random words. Bellatrix was insane enough. I don't want nonsense on my arm. And the English language was no damn help at all. I thought about abstracting the lines, making them into a pattern but that'd be more obvious I was hiding something not less."

Mudblood

The word hung between them unspoken. He had never used that epithet to her face. Theo disliked the vulgarity. But he had thought it. She didn't know her place. Didn't keep herself decently out of sight. Too loud, too bold, too good.

Over too much firewhiskey, Draco had told him about that night. The girl they had both derided had done something neither of them had managed. She had defied the Dark Lord's most fanatic devotee. Weeping on the floor, cursed by a witch who had driven others mad with pain, she had not broken.

The last time Bellatrix had touched him, he had spent the night scrubbing himself red to get rid of the stink of his own fear.

"Medb log Enech, the honour-price of the Queen." His Old Erse was far from fluent but the translation of the Ulster Cycle he'd read had left in many of the more subtle phrases. "Queen Maeve doesn't seem a likely role-model for you."

"I thought of it more to remind me however powerful you are, however big a noise you make in life, small things can finish you." She lifted her chin to mimic Malfoy's sneer. "Ophelia will say the words remind her how to comport herself."

"Did Ophelia cut it herself?" Theo asked, hoping his 'sister' didn't mean to mimic her theatrical namesake.

"When our mother abandoned us to pursue her latest paramour, I wanted to give myself a permanent reminder to be no one's concubine." Hermione had given that part some thought. "You don't have a high opinion of your grandmother. If we model our putative mother after her, it'll seem plausible that we're alone in the world."

"I'm not sure what spell to use." He stared at the incised word. A slicing hex wouldn't give him the control he needed to shape the letters. There were other, darker spells. Telling himself it needed to be done did not spur him to do it.

"You won't need a spell. I have the knife she used." Her initial intention had been to keep the weapon out of the Death Eaters' hands. Then she had meant to destroy it. Now she wanted to study it. "It's old. Fascinating, really."

"I do not find myself intrigued." Theo protested, though he doubted she believed him. "I have handled similar daggers. I can activate the curse, albeit not as intensely as Madam Lestrange."

"I think we're both okay with that." Hermione licked dry lips. "Best to do it in the shower. Easier to clean up afterwards."

They went upstairs and had a determinedly clinical conversation. Hermione drew the alterations with the fountain pen for Theo to trace. The last 'd' was ragged enough that if the horizontal lines of the 'E' crossed the vertical it would be passable. Plausible too that towards the end her hand would've been shaking.

There was a lot of blood. The knife cut the skin with almost no resistance. Theo had to be very careful to keep to the ink lines and not slice wildly. Hermione sat ashen faced with her back against the wall, eyes squeezed shut repeating silently to herself that it wasn't as bad as the first time.

She wasn't on her back. She wasn't helpless. She had her wand in her hand. She could stop this whenever she wanted. She was in control.

"Granger." Theo dropped the dagger as soon as he was finished. He felt filthy, and a dirty, vicious part of him was aroused by the power and her submission. "Granger, it's done."

"I hate her." Hermione breathed slowly. "I thought that once she was dead the hate would go away." She blinked. The electric light was starkly reassuring she was not in Malfoy Manor.

"It doesn't." He sat down beside her, rubbing his hands on his shirt. Filthy. Disgusting. Tempting. "It's like a disease. It runs its own course regardless of the vector."

"Good analogy." She sucked in a deep breath then cast a coagulating charm. Easier to learn than a healing spell. Good for first aid. She had used it so often during and after the Battle of Hogwarts she could almost cast it wandless.

"Do you want me to be somewhere else?" Theo asked, watching her wipe sweat from her face with her sleeve. She shook her head and sniffed, gulping air again as she laboured through the shock. Draco had always wanted privacy. Crabbe and Goyle liked company. Zabini had been lucky never to be called upon to serve. Fence-sitting bastard.

"I'll be alright in a bit." Hermione waited for her heartbeat to calm from staccato to a more regular tempo. "I'm going to wear short sleeves and bloody flaunt it."

"Regulation uniform." He looked down at himself. "Which neither of us have."

"I unpacked all my clothes before going for a walk. I'd bought all new things." She was irrationally irritated about that. It seemed so wasteful, and she didn't like clothes shopping when it was necessary.

"So did I." New raiment for new endeavours. "You hold the purse-strings." Theo was not comfortable with relying so completely on someone else's charity. When they returned to their own time, he could pay his debts. Until then, he was a pauper.

"We can keep to the basics. I expect Orpheus and Ophelia had a feast or famine upbringing. So we'll get a lot of coordinates from Oxfam." Hermione nodded to herself. Organise, that's the ticket. He was looking at her expectantly. "Oh, that's a thrift store chain. They work to relieve poverty."

"We, the twin siblings, are pure-bloods." Theo was carefully specific. Arguing with her right now about heritage and politics would be more confronting than he wished. As much as he did not want to sound like his father, the words often came out of their own accord.

"Would you rather buy cheaply where no one knows who you are or keep to the magical world and be judged like the Weasleys?" She stood up slowly, starting to clean her arm gingerly. The bathroom would need quite a bit of work too. Two dentists would be able to identify bloodstains in their grout.

"We'd be resentful either way. We have to have some proper clothes. Maybe in older styles." Wearing someone else's trousers was not appealing. "I'm not suggesting bespoke, just unremarkable."

"This is a lot easier in movies. You see a shopfront with a mannequin, there's a montage and the protagonist walks out stylishly camouflaged." Hermione pulled a first aid kit from her little bag and dressed her arm. She swallowed a painkiller then began with the cleaning charms.

"I understand your words not the concepts." Theo joined in with the tidying. It made him feel much better not to see blood on the tiles.

"Never mind." Harry had grown up with Muggles and Ron with his Muggle-obsessed father. They at least could follow her references. The truly cloistered pure-bloods were clueless. "If we're stuck here long enough to need entertainment, the first Star Wars movie comes out in 1977. That ought to confuse you thoroughly."

They discussed their options as they picked over the house, checking they had left nothing out of place. Both agreed the closer to the truth they kept their lies, the better. The priority was to secure their entrance into Hogwarts.

While it was more practical to have clothes, school supplies and a detailed life history, that implied forethought on the twins' part.

They had not anticipated arriving years before they were born but they could play that as an asset. It was a riskier strategy than the detailed planning they both preferred, however the wizarding world was paralysed with fear. And fearful people liked simple answers.

Which was why Theo and Hermione found themselves back in Hogsmeade, in the Owl Post Office sending a crisply polite letter to Professor Slughorn. They waited in the Three Broomsticks enjoying a large brunch and wrote continuously in their notebooks. Winging it would only get them so far.

Horace Slughorn met them within an hour of their letter's dispatch. Theo's assessment of his character was proven accurate; on producing the document supporting their identity the Potions Professor fell over himself to assist them.

Affably, he escorted them to the Headmaster's office and introduced them to Albus Dumbledore, who genially offered them candy. Hermione sat rigid as Theo lied to the old man who she had respected for years. Until she learned he had feet of clay.

"I am sorry to hear of your circumstances and hope you will find refuge in Hogwarts." The platitude was smoothly delivered and seemed so genuine. There was twinkle in his eye. He was so much the perfect kindly father-figure that Hermione wanted to grab him by the beard and shake him.

"Thank you, Headmaster." She smiled tightly, trying to convey aristocratic hauteur rather than simmering outrage. If he had only told Harry the truth from the beginning! They'd have had years to prepare. They could've saved people. How dare he sit there smiling like it wasn't all his fucking fault.

"Of course, there will be some adjustments to be made. I expect your schooling was quite different to what you'll find here." Dumbledore's gaze drifted lightly from Theo to Hermione then back to Theo.

"Mother provided us with the best of tutors, when they were available." Theo said coldly, hearing the unspoken critique of their education. Not unreasonable, he told himself. It still stung. He prided himself on his Outstandings.

"Nevertheless, it would be remiss of me to throw you unprepared into your NEWTS." The elderly wizard smiled, helping himself to a lemon drop. "I think it might be best if we put you in with the Sixth Years. More time to fill in any gaps. I'm sure you both want to do well."

Theo and Hermione shared the same incredulous look. The Sixth Years? Wasting their time repeating a year when they had already been denied their seventh year once? The age gap would be even worse and they would be under far more supervision. Which, each cynically guessed, was rather the point.

"As you say, Headmaster." Theo gave their acquiescence courteously, both their faces studiously neutral.

"Good, good." The smile was still there, though perhaps more knowing than before. "You can stay in Hogsmeade and gather what you need for term then join the other students on the platform when the Express arrives. I'm sure you'll speedily make friends."

The Headmaster dismissed them and Slughorn escorted them from the castle. They didn't say anything until they had booked a room at the Three Broomsticks and both cast a Muffliato. Then there was some swearing.

"He suspects something." Theo asserted once he had quelled his profane exclamations. His sixth year at Hogwarts had been excruciating. He did not want another. "Or is he usually like that?"

"Yes, to both." Hermione sat down on one of the beds and kicked off her heels. She had copied one of her mother's dresses then transfigured her shoes to better conform with conservative wizarding fashion. Theo had done the same with one of her father's blazers and ties.

"What will he do about it?" That was the crux.

"Nothing overt. We'll be watched and he'll drop hints we should confide in him." She rubbed her feet, grimacing at the surveillance not her sore soles.

"Do you want to?" He had noticed her tension in the office. Her fingers had been clenched tight on the arms of her chair.

"I'm very angry with him." That was a masterfully controlled understatement. "He kept so much from us. He had his own agenda and we were pawns." Hermione looked up from her toes to her unlikely comrade-in-arms. "I expect you know what that feels like."

"Absolutely." Theo confirmed grimly.


	5. Bauble

Accustomed to having to badger Harry and Ron, Hermione found Nott surprisingly easy to get along with. They could work together quietly and neither interrupted if the other was reading. It was nice.

"Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions and Transfiguration." Hermione rattled off her OWL subjects. "Outstanding, except for an Exceeds Expectations in DADA."

"The same, excepting Care of Magical Creatures. All Outstanding." They had already decided to do all their classes together to keep a united front in their fakery. "It's going to be astoundingly tedious repeating everything."

"We could pick up the subjects we didn't do. Catching up on the reading shouldn't be a problem." Their debate over their class schedule was done sitting under a tree as the weather was lovely and the Three Broomsticks was too loud for private conversation.

"Divination, really?" He made a face.

"I know, I know." Hermione looked at the tally of subjects between them. "But think of this more as an intellectual exercise. Either we take something new or we drive ourselves up the wall."

"Muggle Studies would keep us away from anyone sympathetic to Tom." Theo used the Dark Lord's first name then felt himself waiting to be struck by a thunderbolt. Fear clung. "You can tutor me, and as twins our divinations will be similar. We can share predictions."

"We might not have Professor Trelawney as a teacher. I'm not sure when she was first hired. The class might actually be bearable." Hogwarts: a History had entries for all the people who had ever taught at the school but after dropping the subject, she had somewhat glossed over the chapters on Divination. 

"So long as we don't asphyxiate from the incense, I will be content." He had not opted to take the elective but his dorm-mates had and after every class in the North Tower their clothes had reeked. "It might be of use in helping us get back."

"Arithmancy will too. Runes won't." Which was unfortunate as Professor Babbling's class has been one of her favourites.

"There is only so many times I can read the Edda anyway." The Notts were originally Viking rune-casters and skalds. Out of ancestral pride, his family had accrued an extensive collection of runic works. He could read the Elder Futhark as easily as English. "You'd think a school this size would have more Norse literature."

"It does, but it's in the Ancient Studies section misfiled by author." Her revelation made Theo put his pen down and pinch the bridge of his nose. Feigning eye strain was a useful way to avoid showing his expression as he struggled not to swear out loud.

"I looked through the entire Scandinavian History collection. Every last book, searching for new passages to cite for my essays. There was so little, I had the elves send me books from home." Taking anything from the Nott library required his father's permission, and his father was seldom permissive. About anything. "Why didn't Pince re-sort them correctly?"

"If the students can't find them, they can't damage them. I think she likes the idea of books rather than the reading of them. She's a dragon with her hoard." Hermione empathised with his frustration. She had spent five years looking for Meltwistle's Treatise on Defensive Bolstering only to find in with the books on domestic upholstery charms. "Shall we take the class then?"

"No." Theo put a vengeful line through the Study of Ancient Runes. He eyed his list. "As much as I enjoy Astronomy, it devours free time. If we drop it and Herbology, we can take Alchemy and one of the specialist studies depending on what's available."

"I could stand to drop History of Magic too. I doubt Professor Binns has updated his syllabus since he passed on." Hermione suggested and Theo nodded. They both crossed out the subject. "Kettleburn has Magical Creatures. He didn't seem to like us."

"It'd be novel to have a competent teacher. Hagrid was a menace." The Blast-Ended Skrewts had been the last straw. He'd dropped the class at the end of Fourth Year.

"Hagrid tried his best. He knows a lot. He's a bit over-enthusiastic, that's all." She defended her friend. The half-giant was a stalwart ally even if not a very good instructor.

"The class will give us a excuse to be about on the grounds at random hours as I presume we will be tending something." Theo said blandly, keeping his opinions on inept teachers and Dumbledore's nepotism to himself.

Hermione ticked Care of Magical Creatures while biting her tongue. They were stuck here together. Fighting over little things would only sabotage their efforts to cooperate. Besides, he was a Slytherin. What did he know about true friendship? From what she'd seen of his House it was all influence-mongering and cronyism.

Five days later, she would remember she had thought that.

After sorting their schedule, the alleged twins went to Gladrags. The eccentric shop did stock Hogwarts uniforms but in no sensible order or sizing. They trawled through the racks, pausing to marvel at the garments available. It became a contest to find the most eye-watering piece of clothing.

"I believe I have a winner." Theo pulled out a man's shirt with ruffles on the collar, cuffs and front. Hermione squinted at the Mandelbrot paisley pattern.

"Put it back before it follows us home." She laughed and they continued shopping in easy companionship. When they had accumulated enough of an every-day wardrobe to pass muster, they returned to the Three Broomsticks to change; Hermione in the bedroom and Theo in the bathroom.

Gladrags was the stepping stone to get them through the crowd in Diagon Alley without undue attention. They had to go to London to get their books as well as a few pieces of high-end wizarding couture. Hermione had rolled her eyes but Theo had insisted.

Madam Malkin's was booked solid with fittings, which wasn't surprising given how close to term it was. Twilfitt and Tattings had a more exclusive clientele, which was why Theo was careful to transfigure the seal on his signet ring from the crest of the Notts to the Varinens. Either would be recognised by the pure-bloods that frequented the shop.

Theo held the door open for his 'sister' and she swept past as though such courtesy was her due. He had given Hermione a quick course on society manners and was pleased when she waited for him by the counter as he was nominally her chaperone.

A sleek witch in pristine cream robes approached them after Theo had joined Hermione, who noticed the little pause. They'd evidently passed a test.

"Good afternoon, Madam." Hermione took the lead as it was more polite for a witch to address a witch in mixed company. "My brother and I require dress robes and wonder if you could oblige."

"Have you patronised our establishment previously?" Her eyes flicked over Hermione's austerely braided hair to the Windsor knot on Theo's tie. Little details, the Nott heir had assured the Muggle-born.

"We have not." Don't explain, don't give more than they ask, Theo had warned her. However pretentious, dressmakers are still servants. Hermione had bitten back a lecture on shokunin and the skill of the artisan.

"We are rather busy but I am sure we can..." The well-modulated reply was interrupted by a shaggy haired teenage boy barging into the shop. In his wake came a younger boy and an older woman whose mouth was pursed so hard her lips were one grim line.

"Hello, ladies!" The rumpled teenager greeted the customers and attendants brightly. He noticed Theo and bowed theatrically. "And you too, sir. Sirius Black, at your service."

Theo said nothing. The florid greeting was not an introduction. He was not obliged to acknowledge it or reciprocate with his own name. Hermione stood frozen, her hands clenching, as she tried to decide how to act.

"Be quiet, boy. Show some dignity." Walburga snapped, jabbing her elder son in the back with her wand. Sirius grimaced then sauntered over to the counter to lean nonchalantly and smile at Hermione.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." He grinned, flicking his hair with a practised toss of his head. "I haven't seen you around? New to England?"

Theo decided that the need to distance themselves from Black would be an ideal way to establish their credentials. He put an arm around Hermione and led her towards the door. As they left the shop, he gave a polite nod to Walburga Black, who had gone to school with his father. They did not speak but he expected that.

Outside, he headed towards a little bistro and sat Hermione down at a table. She let her breath out in a sharp sigh but Theo shook his head. They only had time to catch the attention of a waitress before Regulus Black left Twilfitt and Tattings to march over to them.

"Pardon me, but my mother would like to offer her apologies for my elder brother." The boy said by rote, clearly used to this ritual.

"No need." Theo stood from the table and offered his hand. "Orpheus Varinen, and my sister, Ophelia."

"Regulus Black." He shook hands with Theo and made a little bow towards Hermione, who had composed herself enough to give him a nod as per Theo's manners briefing.

"Please extend to your mother an invitation to join us for tea, at her convenience." This part of the exchange was less pro forma but encountering the fearsome matron was an opportunity Theo wanted to exploit. Regulus took himself off to relay the invitation.

"Seriously?" Hermione asked under her breath then groaned at her pun. "She was bad enough as a portrait."

"If she accepts us we won't have to explain ourselves to anyone." Theo urged, not mentioning that when he, age three, met Madam Black he had hidden under a settee.

"Fine. You do the talking. I'll do the non-committal noises." She sat up straight and waited for the harridan to appear. Even across a busy street they could hear raised voices in Twilfitt and Tattings. The door slammed as the Black matriarch left the shop with her younger son in tow.

Theo stood as the matron neared their table. Regulus introduced his mother to them, there was a choral round of 'how do you do' then the Blacks took tea with the Varinens. It was as dire as Hermione expected.

Madam Black asked subtly insulting questions to which Theo replied alternately with stonking great whoppers or bland half-truths. He stuck to the story they had agreed upon, emphasising their connection to the Varinens and shoring that up with what he knew of his grandfather's family. Hermione drank her tea and agreed with Theo when called upon. Regulus just drank his tea.

"Your English is very good, Ophelia." Walburga switched targets with the air of a queen about to banish an interloper from court.

"Our mother was English." Hermione remembered the ranked heads of the house elves Walburga and her ilk had mounted on their walls. She imagined the older witch walking to the guillotine a la Revolution and managed quite a pleasant smile. "Mama preferred her mother tongue. She felt it was more select."

Theo smiled into his tea. Gryffindor lions could be catty. Oddly, that seemed to reassure Madam Black. She ordered petits-fours and bragged about Regulus as though he were an only child.

Her other offspring sauntered out of Twilfitt and Tattings, noticed someone in the crowd and shouted to him. Walburga's fingers tightened on her cup as she ostentatiously did not notice Sirius's antics. Hermione didn't look either. She didn't want to see her best friend in his father's form.

Reticence did not seem to be on the Marauders' agenda today, for they swaggered over to the bistro and pulled out chairs to join in. Sirius helped himself to a little cake licking off the icing suggestively.

"Ooh, sweet." He winked at Hermione, who doggedly ignored him. "Nothing to say? James, old boy, I feel snubbed." Putting a hand to his heart, he pouted plaintively. "I don't think the pretty girl likes me."

"I don't think she's that pretty." James pretended to study the young witch like an art connoisseur "Presentable enough, I suppose, but you know I prefer redheads."

He looked so like Harry that his smirk hurt. He wasn't some stranger in anachronistic clothes. Her best friend was mocking her. Hermione put her tea cup down carefully with both hands.

"I doubt redheads prefer you." She said tartly, not thinking the insult particularly cutting as she knew James and Lily got married. The pure-blood Potter's expressive face when from mocking to offended in a flash; a spoiled child snubbed.

"What would you know, you stupid cow?" James demanded as Sirius egged him on.

"Please excuse us." Theo said speedily as he got to his feet to avoid the brewing scene. Hermione followed his lead and with a bare pause to allow Madam Black to dismiss them, they left to finish their shopping.

"I should've kept my mouth shut." Hermione muttered as they crossed the street. Making snippy comments would not be helpful to their efforts to get the hell out of the disco era. "I'd forgotten how fragile the egos of teenage boys are."

"Not all of us are so defensive." The scion of Nott interjected. "Though Potter seems unusually sensitive."

"He keeps on asking Lily to go out with him until their seventh when she finally agrees." She cut herself off from further comment when they were greeted again by the witch with the effortless ensemble.

The Varinen twins were very welcome in Twilfitt and Tattings, and found the purchase of dress robes no trouble at all. Theo went with classic black and white while Hermione chose a periwinkle gown with butterfly sleeves. They ordered winter cloaks too, as apparently there was a lexicon of social mores connected with cold weather wear. The Muggle-born witch almost called her 'brother' on balderdash except for the earnest way the seamstress asked about frogging and hood shape.

"That was more than usually daft." Hermione observed after they had arranged for their purchases to be delivered to Hogwarts and paid an armada of Galleons. Theo smiled wryly as he escorted her to Flourish and Blotts.

"It gets worse. If we were out of school and doing the Season, you'd be ordering a dress or more a week depending on events." As a wizard, he could get away with the penguin costume but he'd be seen as banal if he did so. Dashing waistcoats and finely tailored dinner jackets were emblems of power.

"I'll spend my pin money on books, thanks." She smirked then checked their list. It was not short, and there were a great many works they would have to order secretly or hunt down. Time Travel was Ministry controlled, which made books on it particularly the practical ones they needed a regulated resource.

They worked from one end of the store to the other, adding titles to a growing stack floating behind them. The crush of customers meant they had to climb over counters and pull books off the top shelves with magic. Neither of them noticed the dark haired young man silently watching them.


	6. Biddable

Partly to refresh for their classes and partly to settle their nerves, Theo and Hermione spent the rest of their time before term start reading. They took their texts out to the tree they had previously chosen for the rowan was shady and had absolutely no view of the lake.

The night before their second first day of Sixth Year, they packed. And re-packed. And made lists. And seeing the agitation of the other but in not themselves, went for a walk around Hogsmeade to clear their heads.

By mutual agreement, they slept in on the morning of September 1st. Theo showered first so Hermione could take her time in the bathroom and swear at her hair. When she emerged she looked like a Germanic princess with a crown of braids. Theo did not comment.

A late start, a leisurely breakfast, a thorough tidy of their inn room and whiling away a few hours in Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop indulging their mutual weakness for stationary calmed them. Ophelia and Orpheus Varinen took their trunks down to Hogsmeade Station early and waited for the Hogwarts Express.

By six thirty in the evening they had been joined by several Scottish students who had elected not to travel down to London only to return by the scenic route. Marlene McKinnon was not one of them. Hermione had shared with Theo the names of the original members of the Order of the Phoenix so the twins could avoid them. Theo had done the same with the Death Eaters and their sympathisers.

Once the train arrived, Orpheus and Ophelia attempted to blend in with the rest of the students. That was surprisingly difficult. The war had polarised the wizarding community and the teenagers had taken to expressing their loyalties with their attire.

The Muggle-borns managed it the best with bell-bottom jeans and colourful shirts. The half-bloods, being more removed from Muggle tends, were more haphazard in their choices. Day-glo gingham and crimplene predominated. The pure-bloods had seemingly picked clothes at random based on whether they would be visible from orbit.

On the conservative side, the students looked like relics from the 1930s. Serge, tweed and twinsets. Most were already in their uniforms as either a show of disdain or subtle exclusivity. The preponderance of heraldic jewellery reminded Hermione of Umbridge and her 'family' locket.

Tellingly, no one introduced themselves to the clearly un-Sorted Varinens. No one wanted to risk publicly acknowledging someone on the other side.

When she and Theo stood with the First Years, Hermione was painfully conscious of the attention. They were the last alphabetically that year so when she finally had the Sorting Hat placed on her head, her insistence on Ravenclaw was immediate.

 _'Oh a lost one, and so sure. You have a ready mind, resourceful and clever.'_ The Hat's voice in her head sounded amused.

'You put Harry where he wanted, and it was a toss up the first time for me between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Please don't be difficult.' Hermione thought hard at the Hat.

 _'Determined, with secrets to keep. There's really no choice. Think of this as an intellectual exercise.'_ The Hat chuckled as it threw her words back at her.

"SLYTHERIN!" It announced, almost grinning.

This is where I wake up, Hermione thought to herself as the Gryffindor table led by James and Sirius booed. This is where the nightmare ends and I'm back in my bed in the Burrow. Molly will be calling me for breakfast any moment.

Instead of a home-cooked fry-up, she walked with head high to the green table. Two girls shifted apart to make room for her and seemed ordinarily pleasant. Hermione watched Professor McGonagall place the bloody Hat on Theo's head, saw him smile and without surprise heard the Hat announce its verdict.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Her 'twin' joined her at the table not scrupling to hide his smirk. Hermione bet that throwing bread rolls at your sibling was not done in pure-blood circles so she restricted herself to glaring at him.

"You look good in green." Theo couldn't resist teasing her.

"Flattery doesn't suit you." She retorted. They couldn't discuss it here at the Slytherin table. There wasn't much to discuss, as there was no appeal process against the Hat's whim.

"Are you disappointed?" The fair haired girl to her right asked too casually.

"No." Hermione said crisply, gearing up to lie to absolutely everyone all the time. "We heard the teachers are partisan. A less remarkable House would make our time here easier."

"They're biased, certainly." The blonde acknowledged. "I'm Berengaria Yaxley. The Professors aren't all bad. Try to avoid McGonagall and Egg. They're both Muggle-lovers."

"That will be somewhat difficult. We're taking both their classes." Theo spoke as idly as Berengaria, announcing upfront they were taking the political awkward subject. Miss Yaxley's nose crinkled as though he had broken wind.

"If you feel you must." She shifted position, putting her shoulder to Ophelia and ending the conversation.

After the feast, the new Slytherins were escorted to the Dungeon by the Seventh Year Prefects. Theo noted the draperies had changed from green to silver but otherwise the Common Room looked much the same as it had in his time. He listened patiently to the protocol speech then went up to the Sixth Year Dorm to stow his trunk.

Hermione met him after doing the same errand herself. They had meticulously checked nothing anachronistic or suspect went into their luggage. Theo had bought a Muggle belt with a concealed compartment for money and cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on it. They'd divided Hermione's supplies and money between them in case of emergencies. Including the spare wands they had purchased at Jimmy Kiddell's.

The twins made themselves comfortable in a quiet corner, took out their Divination text books and attempted to ignore the interest their arrival had caused. Regulus Black was the first to approach them.

"Mother will be pleased you're in the right House." He opened, and relaxed a little when the older boy put a bookmark in place to pay attention to him.

"We were hoping for Ravenclaw." Theo said honestly as that often threw his fellow Snakes. He pitched his voice to carry. "We had heard there was strife in Britain and we hope to avoid any entanglements."

"Not much chance of that." Regulus shifted in his chair, leaning forward intently. "We're at war. If you don't pick a side, you'll get washed away in a tide of filth. We're fighting for our survival."

"A laudable goal." The boy was young and idealistic. He had no idea. Had he even attended a Revel? Theo guessed not. "But it's not our war."

"You're a pure-blood. It's your duty." The earnestness was so sincere Regulus sounded younger for it.

"My duty is to my family." Theo kept his tone level, putting no particular force behind his statement. His eyes were on the boy but he listened for the puppet-master as Black was too young to be leader of the war faction. They were using him to sound out potential recruits before the serious indoctrination began.

No one in the Common Room interrupted the amiable chat to add pressure or persuasion. Regulus didn't look towards anyone for guidance. He excused himself politely and left the twins to their reading.

Theo and Hermione stayed up until about eleven o'clock then retired to their separate dorms. For her part, Hermione met Yaxley again along with Zinnia Kneen and Clotilde Travers. The Sixth Year Slytherin girls extravagantly ignored her, which suited Hermione perfectly well. She warded her bed and went to sleep.

In the boys dorm, Theo sat on his trunk while Avery and Rosier stood over him, Snape read and Urquart drew the curtains around his bed firmly closed. He had expected this. He waited for the opening threat.

"There's no neutral ground in war, Varinen. You're either with us or you're dead, do you understand?" Avery showed his teeth in what he probably thought was a menacing grin. He would get better at it as he grew older but he would remain a sadistic bully.

"Petrificus Totalus." Theo dropped his arm to slide his wand out of his sleeve and cast the Full Body-Bind Curse on Avery before he could defend himself. Rosier was not slow but Theo had fought in a war. He countered the wracking hex shot at him, a Death Eater favourite, and cursed Rosier the same as Avery.

At the second thud of a body hitting the floor, Snape closed his book. He said nothing as Theo levitated their room-mates into their beds. When Theo returned to sit on his trunk to remove his shoes, and thus had his hands occupied, the other boy spoke.

"You have chosen a side by default." Severus warned.

"I have not." Theo countered in a way he never would have done to his Head of House. Recollection of years of stern oversight made him more circumspect than if it had been Urquart sticking his beak in. "This is me demonstrating my understanding of a poorly delivered threat."

"There will be a reprisal." Again Severus was stating fact.

"Of course. And in response to that reprisal, there will be another demonstration. If Avery and Rosier are slow learners, this lesson make take quite a few iterations." He set his shoes down neatly, changed into his pyjamas and tucked himself in. "Good night, gentlemen."

Having set her alarm for six o'clock, Hermione was the first awake. She checked for any nocturnal pranks, found none, then had a shower before the other girls roused. Basic courtesy in a shared bathroom dictated not lingering in the morning so she did her hair in privacy but dressed in the dorm.

She had never bothered much with beauty charms so braiding her hair magically took several attempts. Restraining her curls without spells was near impossible. Conversely, she wanted Yaxley, Kneen and Travers to see her scars. She was not going to hide them.

It was anti-climactic than none of the girls even stirred or commented. They may actually have still been sleeping, which Hermione considered a waste. Breakfast was at 7:30, with classes starting at 9 o'clock. Rushing in the morning left you frazzled for the whole day.

When she entered the Common Room, Theo was just leaving the boys' dorm. Behind him was a pale young man with very black hair who was so unmistakably her Potions Professor that Hermione's pulse jumped. This was like living in a ghost story; all around were the dead walking.

"Good morning." Theo greeted his 'sister' then walked over to her to take one of her cold hands. "Sleep well?"

"Like the dead." Hermione replied hoarsely then cleared her throat. "I hope you are similarly well rested." She quirked an eyebrow. Had there been trouble?

"Tolerably enough." It was Slytherin policy not to air dirty laundry in public. They strolled out of the Common Room towards the Great Hall. No one followed them so they could divert to an empty classroom without notice.

"That bad?" She asked as Theo warded the door.

"Not yet, but Avery will tell-tale to Mulciber, who will come after you to show me the consequences of my actions." You were always punished for defiance. Theo had learned that lesson quickly and well.

"Mulciber likes the Imperius Curse." During the war, Hermione had made handy flash cards to note the preferences of individual Death Eaters. Avery was vicious but weak-willed. Mulciber was an opportunist and spiteful.

"You'll need to be on your guard." He cautioned.

"I can do better than that." She drew herself up to her full if average height and told herself her war against him was over. They were allies in a new conflict. Sharing this with him wasn't treason. "Magical compulsion was such a risk for us, we tried all sorts of tricks. One is layering a prior Imperius as contingency. It doesn't shield you but it can get you out of a tight spot."

"Show me." Theo drew his wand. "There isn't a counter-curse for any of the Unforgivables."

"We knew resisting the Imperius takes time so we opted for something faster." Hermione gripped her replacement vine wood tightly. "I cast the Imperius on you with orders to cast the Imperius on me with instructions to cast a hex the instant I am subject to the Imperius again."

"Chain-linking the curses to ensure they trigger." He followed the logic of the back-and-forth. Layered magic was difficult to dispel as well as being positively anxious to discharge itself.

"The contingency Imperius triggers before the effects of the hostile Imperius. We usually use a Confundus as it's subtle but makes concentrating impossible for the hostile caster." The Confusion Charm was not lethal so it avoided any collateral damage. "Of course, Moody said we should use the Expulso Curse."

"If you compel me to cast on you, I can't compel you to cast on me." Theo puzzled out the switching and realised he couldn't reciprocate without triggering her contingency.

"That was a problem, yes. We cast down the line until the last person, who stayed in whatever safe house we were using. Tonks was the final while she was pregnant or Moody as he refused to let anyone cast anything on him." Hermione felt the familiar rictus in her chest at mention of her dead friends. "We were so paranoid then."

"You needed to be." It wasn't a platitude. Hermione's response was to cast the Imperius on Theo, giving him the instructions as she had explained. He cast mechanically but proficiently and afterwards they stood blinking as the remnants of the Curses dissipated.

"I hate that spell." Hermione said tightly. "If Mulciber tries anything, I'm going to push him down the stairs."


	7. Boggle

A quick breakfast, the library then Defence Against the Dark Arts class with the Gryffindors and Professor Denbright. Hermione had never met the short, stocky man in the flat cap but she recognised him from the photograph of the original members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Even if she hadn't seen the photo, she would've guessed his allegiance by the favouritism he showed the Gryffindors and the way he never turned his back on the Slytherins. He wasn't blatant but when Theo raised an eyebrow at her all she had to do was nod to confirm his suspicion. Dumbledore had planted a ringer in the school to bolster surveillance.

Denbright paired off Snakes and Lions, with the Slytherins practising non-verbal Shield Charms while the Gryffindors practised Stunning spells.

"Now, I'll go easy on our new arrivals." He beckoned to Theo and Hermione. "Marlene, Lupin, you help them through the practical. Give them a chance to catch up if they need to."

A young woman with long honey-coloured hair stopped whispering to her red-headed friend and trotted over, extending her hand to Hermione.

"Hi, I'm Marlene McKinnon." She smiled, willing to make the effort to be polite to a snob.

"Varinen." Hermione said coldly, folding her hands together to cover the automatic response to shake hands. The McKinnons weren't a pure-blood family and therefore by custom Ophelia would not touch them.

"Don't be so gross." Marlene dropped her hand. "I was just trying to be nice." She flicked her wand, muttering 'stupefy' under her breath as she couldn't manage a completely silent Stunner. There was a slight ripple around Hermione as the spell bounced off. The Gryffindor's brown eyes widened and she called out excitedly. "Hey, Professor, she's doing it."

"Already?" Denbright turned from explaining the procedure to Remus as though he expected the werewolf to run amok with spells, to looking Hermione up and down. "Let's see it them."

Marlene tried hard to cast non-verbally but couldn't manage it without going red in the face. She resorted to a standard casting to show their teacher and again her spell rebounded.

"Maybe you need a bit more oomph, McKinnon. Stupefy!" Sirius called and fired off a Stunner of his own at Hermione. It bounced away too, though with more ripples and a few sparkles. He'd meant that one.

"Wand a bit limp, Black?" Theo inquired to general sniggers from the Slytherins. Hermione bit her lip to avoid laughing, knowing that Sirius never backed down from a challenge.

"Settle." Denbright made a quelling motion with his hands. "Good work, Varinen. Two points to Slytherin. Keep on with it, Marlene."

Hermione had to stand there and take it as her partner worked stolidly to master non-verbal casting. She watched Theo doing much the same though Remus was having more success at not murmuring. Denbright watched them out of the corner of his eye as he moved through the room correcting technique.

When it came to switch partners, Marlene ended up on the floor first go. Hermione had pulled her power but the friendly girl was still knocked onto her backside. Remus was sent sprawling too, and it was to him not Marlene that Denbright went, hauling the werewolf to his feet. Seemingly resigned, Remus didn't shake off the restraining hand.

While the Professor's attention was elsewhere, Sirius shot a Tripping Hex at Hermione. With a slash of her wand, she sent it reflecting back at him and he ended up on his bum too. The Slytherins burst into laughter.

In their free period after DADA, that would have been Ancient Runes, Theo and Hermione hid in the library. They had been congratulated by their peers for showing up the blood-traitor and the half-bloods. The witch had found every accolade excruciating

As they didn't yet have access to the Restricted Section, they began their search methodically through the History of Magic tomes to note any reference to time magic or temporal anomalies. They coordinated their note-taking to start building a database and had made sufficient progress to feel upbeat before heading to Advanced Arithmancy.

The class was small enough to have all the Houses in together, with three Ravenclaws, three Slytherins, two Gryffindors and one Hufflepuff. Professor Vector welcomed the 'twins' to the class then gave them a series of equations to allow her to gauge their competence

They worked in silence as the Professor explained the course structure and the workload, which was considerable. She answered a few questions mostly from the Ravenclaws and one from Lily Evans before collecting the equations from Hermione and Theo.

"Very good." Vector compared the two papers. The working technique was identical but the methods slightly different. They hadn't copied each other. "Your understanding of the vigesimal system is sound. I'm surprised you are acquainted with octal. It's not often taught on the Continent."

"One of our tutors was American. He was an aficionado of Alfred B. Taylor." Hermione answered promptly. She and Theo had fabricated names and brief biographies for their private teachers expecting to be questioned on their academic history.

"Make sure you keep up with the reading, and if you have any difficulties please bring them to my attention immediately." She advised then began the first lesson proper. The room filled with the sound of quills on parchment as Professor Vector lectured.

They went to lunch together, sitting side by side reviewing coursework for Potions. Rosier and Avery sat on the other side of the table with rigidly blank faces. Further along among the Seventh Years, Mulciber made off-colour jokes as though he had nothing on his mind.

Hermione finished lunch and excused herself, saying she would meet her 'brother' at the Potions classroom. Theo nodded absently, his attention on the book in front of him. Under the table, he squeezed her hand. He didn't look up when Mulciber left the Great Hall.

She strolled to the nearest bathroom, went into a cubicle and cast several spells on herself. Mulciber was impatient, with a poor record with women. He wouldn't wait to settle the score by attacking her. Giving him an opportunity now let them choose the battleground.

The Seventh Year was waiting for her when she left the bathroom. She had time to register he was alone before he cursed her. All her troubles drifted away into a happy pink fog. It was such a relief not to have to bother that she almost regretted her hand jerking her wand.

The fog ebbed. Mulciber was standing a pace away from her swaying on his feet. A surge of rage burned through her. Son of a bitch! He needed to be punished. She wanted to Crucio him. But she couldn't do anything permanent as she risked a paradox or Unforgivable, which risked her expulsion from Hogwarts.

"Incarcerous." Hermione made sure the ropes she conjured trussed him up like the pig he was. She added Silencing and Disillusionment Charms then levitated him into an alcove behind a statue. The bindings would fade in a few hours with no one present to renew them. The charms would wear off sooner but unless someone looked for him, Mulciber would miss several classes.

Hermione arrived at the Potions room in plenty of time pretending nothing untoward had happened. Professor Slughorn's lower admittance standards meant the class was crowded even though it was only green and red.

He began a familiar spiel, starting with the identification of a few anonymous potions. Hermione's attention was instantly drawn to the tiny vial at the end of the table. She was whispering to Theo when Slughorn called for a volunteer to name the potions. Evans raised her hand so quickly she was in danger of air friction.

"We need it." Theo responded softly. He remembered that lesson with bitter clarity now; sniggering at Hermione when she told Slughorn she was a Muggle-born. Potter had somehow brewed a perfect Draught of Living Death to the collective disbelief of every other student.

"Stiff competition." Hermione's eyes roved from Lily to Snape. Harry had retrieved his annotated copy of Advanced Potion-Making from the Room of Requirement before the fire. He'd given it to her for good luck, and it was now on a shelf in her Eighth Year suite. Or in Snape's possession in this 'now'.

"We can do it." It had been galling to see Potter win the Felix Felicis once. He would not accept being relegated twice. When Slughorn bade them begin, the 'twins' chose a table right at the back of the room furthest from the four Marauders.

The four female Gryffindors shared a table as did the four other Slytherins. Leaving Caradoc Dearborn orphaned with no option but to join the Varinens.

Ophelia and Orpheus ignored him as he set up his potion kit because they were above him. Hermione tried not to look at him because she knew what would happen to him. Theo was already concentrating on warming his Infusion of Wormwood and fussing with the heating charm under his cauldron. One stray Gryffindor didn't interest him.

Caradoc checked the recipe as his tincture bubbled, watching the Slytherin girl grind asphodel powder from the Potion store more finely.

"Do we need to do that?" He asked, figuring he might as well. The worst she could say was 'die, halfie' and she and her brother looked like they knew what they were doing.

"If you want to get it right, you do." Hermione replied shortly. Dearborn was letting his tincture boil, which would make the asphodel clump. She had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him to turn down his heat.

Across the room, Pettigrew added a handful of asphodel all at once, which made the potion combust so vigorously he was minus his eyebrows. Coughing, he opened a window to clear the smoke, only to have Evans, Snape and the Varinens loudly object as their cauldron flames flickered.

When Avery added his sloth brains, his cauldron boiled over onto the floor in a glutinous mess. Urquart tried to learn from his classmate's mistake and decreased the amount of brains he put into his brew. It spat out green bubbles and melted his spoon.

Then came the Sopophorous beans.

The first one flying across the room was an accident. The second one was carelessness. The dozen afterwards were Sirius and James competing to see how far they could get theirs to go. One pinged off the candelabra. One narrowly missed the back of Slughorn's head. Once they'd got their eye in for trajectory, the two Gryffindors peppered the Slytherins with ballistic beans.

Most hit the table and skittered among the tools but one rolled under Rosier's cauldron into the fire and burst, sending burning bits of bean skin onto open textbooks. At sight of the smouldering paper, Urquart over-did an extinguishing spell and doused the Slytherins' cauldrons. Snape glared.

Laughing, Sirius and James changed their targets for the more ambitious challenge of getting their beans to reach the furthest table. One hit Dearborn on the arm and dropped into his brew. It seethed fiercely.

"Sorry, Caradoc!" James called as his dorm-mate hastily slammed the lid on his cauldron before it spat at him.

"Mister Potter, Mister Black, kindly restrain yourselves." Slughorn scolded, belatedly distracted from his praise of Lily Evans's efforts to notice the hijinks.

Theo and Hermione crushed their beans, added thirteen not the standard twelve then stirred while counting under their breath. The shrivelled, dried beans available to them were not the best to work with. Ideally, all the ingredients would be fresh. Theo dripped a careful measure off his spoon onto a clean plate to inspect the colour.

"Pale pink." He allowed himself a small smile. Hermione did the drip test to compare colours. Hers was the soft rose of success too.

"Two heads are better than one, eh?" Slughorn ambled over and inspected their efforts. "Excellent. It seems that I'm very fortunate this year. Four Potions prodigies!"

From across the room, Evans and Snape looked narrowly at the Varinens. Lily was visibly disappointed and Severus was shuttered but they like the rest of the class joined in the applause that the Professor jollied out of his students.

"Just the one vial, I'm afraid." Slughorn gave a little speech at the end of class before handing Theo the Felix Felicis. "But I'm sure you'll share."

"Probably do a lot of _sharing_." Sirius jibed to James, not quietly, and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Theo's face went white with anger.

Hermione didn't ask until they were alone. She didn't know him well but after spending several days almost joined at the hip, she could read him. He was upset. No, he was more than upset. He was bloody furious.

"What is it?" The witch asked after a cascade of charms to keep their private discussion private. Hermione understood now how Moody had gone around the bend. She was starting to eye keyholes suspiciously.

"I didn't care for his remark." Theo made an attempt at sounding airily that was pathetic to his own ears. "Orpheus should be offended for the slander against his sister's reputation."

"Orpheus is a prig." Hermione crossed her arms. "I'm sure you can prevaricate but I'm best friends with the Chosen One, so I've had years to refine my nagging."

"I don't doubt it." A lonely only child, Theo could see the appeal of a bossy sister. Right now though Hermione's concern made him feel worse. "Won't you let this rest?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you'll be disgusted." He confessed, straightening his tie. This needed to be impersonal, controlled. "You know about Revels." Her crisp nod conveyed she knew more than she wanted. "Most of the time it was just violence. They got off on it. The killing was their pleasure. And most wouldn't have degraded themselves doing anything else."

"But some did." She knew that too.

"Not often. The Dark Lord didn't care for it. I don't think he felt anything physical like that any more. And the witches disapproved. Standards, you know." Theo laughed in spite of himself. Madam Malfoy had been most seriously displeased about corpses on her dining table. "But when there was... more, there was a lot of _sharing_."

"Did you?" Hermione couldn't ask that and make it sound unloaded. She'd hate him if he said yes.

"No!" Theo's shout made them both jump. He continued on, determined not to flinch. "My father and I had been invited to the Crabbes' for dinner. Then Vince's dad brings out these women. Like some sort of dessert, right there after the ladies had retired. He made a joke about brandy and cigars."

Hermione waited, noting the little spasms of the muscles in his face as he choked down his feelings. Slytherins did that a lot. It had taken her years to notice. Sixth Year had been a master class in kinesics.

"We were offered a companion. I think they were Imperiused. One touched me. I must've shown my disgust because Goyle laughed and called me a little boy. My father took me home." He had been so grateful, and sick to his stomach. "He said he was obliged to me for the excuse to leave."

"He didn't either?" Nott Senior had been one of Tom Riddle's school chums. A true believer.

"No. Not because he cared about those women. I've seen him kill with less thought." Theo didn't say 'he tried to teach me how to do it right' but that was the truth. "Father kept a Mistress, a series of them to be honest. But never inappropriately. He loved my mother, in his way. She wouldn't have stood for _sharing_."

"Will you give me your word you've never assaulted someone in that way?" Hermione uncrossed her arms. "I know that's none of my business, that you got your probation." It wasn't fair to ask. "But I spoke to some of the survivors and some things can't be forgiven."

"I've never been with anyone in any way, consensual or otherwise, so my word is easily given." It was embarrassing to admit that to a Muggle-born, whose free and easy society doubtless allowed her to put herself about at her whim.

"Right. Sorry." She wasn't sorry for asking but she was sorry for putting him on the spot. "I assumed the rumours about debauchery in the dungeons were true."

"I beg your pardon?" Theo saw nothing but sincerity on her face. "Your lot really think that?" Her shrug offended him. "What about the free love and riotous parties in Gryffindor Tower?"

"Free Love went out with the hippies in the Sixties. And the riotous parties were loud, I grant you but the worst I saw was Lavender snogging Ron." Funny how it didn't seem to matter any more. Hermione would endure seeing her boyfriend kiss the other girl a dozen times if it meant Lavender was still alive.

"She did that a lot." He had walked in on them twice. "She was always tossing her hair." Theo remembered the bubbly Gryffindor girl with unexpected regret. She'd been silly but so vivacious. Greyback had snuffed her like a candle. "I was glad when they put us in a new dorm for Eighth Year. I didn't want to keep noticing Vince wasn't there."

"I would've been the only one in my dorm. Parvati's still in St Mungo's. Fay went with her family when the Dunbars moved to Canada. They took Kelly with them. Her parents had put her in a psychiatric hospital." She hadn't been particularly close with the other Muggle-born in Gryffindor but she'd leaped to help extract her Housemate.

"Had she gone mad?" Theo was unsure how much he could ask without provoking Granger's ire. She'd taken his confession calmly. Had her war hardened her so greatly?

"After a stint in Azkaban?" Hermione asked rhetorically. "Her parents were trying to help her. As far as they knew, their daughter's school had sent her to jail for showing up to class. They refused to listen to me." Her teeth clenched around her words. "They were afraid of me."


	8. Bedevil

They walked in silence to the library. Having synchronised their note-taking methodologies, a tactic that made researching in groups so much easier, they alternated between homework and plodding fact-checking.

Hermione and Theo kept the books relating to their classes on their table. Anyone looking into the quiet nook they had claimed would see a witch and a wizard diligently studying. Any book to do with time magic went immediately back on the shelf after they had perused it. It was not foolproof but it would allay interest in their extracurricular inquiries.

A tall, rangy young woman with clipped short auburn hair seated herself at their table without invitation. She was wearing Quidditch robes and her cheeks were pink from exertion. The Slytherin Team Captain, by her badge, propped her chin in one gloved hand.

"Lucinda Talkalot, do please call me Lucinda. I'm not technically a Prefect so this isn't an official visit." She spoke absently, her lilting Welsh accent further ameliorating any threat. "Bit of a yawn all round but it has to be asked. Did you stuff Mulciber behind the statue of Sigrid the Haughty?"

"I did." Hermione confirmed.

"Oh, we're playing this game, are we?" Lucinda sighed theatrically. "Righty-o then, why did you stuff Mulciber behind the statue of Sigrid the Haughty?"

"He made an improper suggestion to me." She replied in her stuffiest Ophelia voice.

"Which in a fit of girlish modesty prompted you to Confound him, tie him up, silence him and camouflage him such that he wasn't found for three hours." The Quidditch Captain arched an eyebrow.

"I feared for my virtue." Hermione asserted doggedly.

"As any girl might with Mulciber eyeing them." Lucinda abandoned her languid posture. "So that's the way you're flying with it?"

"A purely private matter." Theo affirmed, watching where the witch put her hands. She was quick and too relaxed. That made him wary.

"Pity it ain't, though. You see, it was Professor McGonagall who found him and given the proximity of the girls' loo and that joke with MacDonald, she was very inquisitive." Sighing as though curiosity was an unfortunate habit, the Seventh Year rose from her seat. "She wants to see the two of you in her office after dinner."

"Why us?" Hermione did not want to see her old Head of House. Minerva McGonagall was a role-model she respected immensely. Lying to her would be a trial by ordeal.

"Because you were seen, Varinen. Since Mulciber's jest with one of her cubs, McGonagall has had the elves watch him." With that revelation, Lucinda loped off leaving them to fierce internal monologues of obscenities.

"The house elves." Theo groaned, casting a Muffliato so they could strategise. "For Merlin's sake."

"We can still do this. We just need to be even more circumspect." She clung to optimism. "You grew up with elves. Is there any way not to be noticed?"

"They're part of the home, tied to the locus with hearth magic. Anywhere that is Hogwarts, they can go." He put his mind to her question as sitting there wringing his hands was contemptible. "House elves are Ljosalfar. Other than the generic protections against fey, I don't know any that would affect them specifically."

"They left Mulciber for three hours, that suggests they don't like him. Unless it was the Professor who decided to let him stew." Hermione tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. She hadn't noticed how often she touched her hair until she had it plaited. Now it felt like she was wearing a helmet.

"I expect it was McGonagall. She loathes Slytherins." Theo had received the sharp edge of the Transfiguration Professor's ire, though far less frequently than some of his Housemates. "Even Pucey couldn't butter her up, and he was preternaturally likeable."

"He was one of your Chasers." Hermione recalled a tall boy with high cheekbones. "He never fouled when he was playing. He seemed quite nice." She considered her own response to someone she'd barely known, who'd been present when Malfoy had called her a Mudblood for the first time. "I take your point."

"The more you saw of it, the more you noticed it. Even Flint liked him, which is a feat in itself." He shook his head. He'd never had the knack of making friends easily. "I think you should take the lead for the meeting. McGonagall will be biased but you know how to handle her."

"You don't 'handle' the Professor!" She castigated, offended at the implication her Head of House was someone to be worked around. "She's been nothing but fair to me. I'm sure if we give a reasonable explanation..." Hermione stopped and put her face in her hands.

"Yes, quite." Theo hesitated then decided against putting a companionable hand on her shoulder. She had shown no indication she would appreciate his commiseration. Quite the opposite, given her fierce defence of the Scottish termagant.

"I hate this." She said into her palms, breathing slowly. The library was not the place to have a breakdown. "I hate knowing what I know and not being able to do anything to change it." Hermione gritted her teeth and put her hands down, looking around to see if anyone had noticed her little moment. "I particularly hate seeing Pettigrew's rat-face and not being able to slam it into a wall."

A rodent ducked behind a shelf. There were mice in the library, drawn by the books and sometimes devoured by them, but seldom a rat of any size.

"Father always had the elves clean the room after he visited." He hadn't got a good look at the animal. It could have been an ordinary rat or an unusually large mouse. Or something that had escaped from the Transfiguration classroom. "Has he become an Animagi already?"

"Their Fifth Year." Hermione would have chased down the rat to be certain. Ophelia stayed where she was, considering their options. "A handy skill to have."

"An insight into your inner self." Theo settled back into his chair, opening Merrythought's Bestiary to make a show of returning to his homework. "It would take us at least a month."

"Getting home could take years." Hiding in their animal forms might help. Sirius had stayed sane that way. "I always wanted to. There never seemed to be enough time."

"I was put off by the chance of turning into something embarrassing. Being known as the wizard who turns into a vole or a budgerigar did not appeal." There were worse creatures to be than a rat. Without a Patronus to give him an indication of his spirit animal, Theo anticipated something awful.

"I expect I would've been an otter before the war. Now, I don't know." Hermione glanced at her watch. It was nearly time for dinner. She didn't have much appetite. "I'd like to find out. I think we should try."

"Officially or unofficially?" If they made it known they were making the attempt, they could parley it into credit for Charms or Transfiguration. But if they succeeded they would be compelled to register. One more paper chain.

"Unofficially." She hoped to keep Orpheus and Ophelia off the books as much as possible. "I want it as insurance."

"How Slytherin of you." Theo smiled, even more amused when she twisted around to glare at him. "You went first, sister. I was obliged to follow."

"I'm going to turn that bloody hat into a diaper bag when we get back." Hermione muttered, gathering her quills. Her 'brother' had the grace not to laugh as he began tidying up too.

When they reached the Great Hall and took their places at the green table, there was no sign of anything amiss. Slytherins played their cards close to their chests. Hermione and Theo sat opposite each other and read through the meal.

They reported to Professor McGonagall's office promptly. They did not have long to wait. The study hadn't changed. Will have not changed, Hermione thought feeling unreal and lost. She sagged into an armchair, ridiculously relieved it wasn't the tartan one that had a squeaky right front leg.

"Miss Varinen, Mister Varinen, I am aware you are new to Hogwarts and therefore unfamiliar with our ways." Minerva McGonagall's crisp accent made the statement sound like an accusation. "However there are rules so obvious I am astounded you are unaware of them."

Hermione had never heard that tone from her former Head of House before. This felt more like an inquisition than an interview. She risked a quick glance at Theo, who sat impassively waiting for the Professor to finish. When neither of the Varinens spoke, McGonagall continued.

"You, Miss Varinen, had an encounter with Prospero Mulciber this afternoon. I have it on good authority he cursed you. You certainly cursed him, repeatedly." Fixing a stony stare on the younger witch, Minerva waited for her to confess. Sharp questioning often got results; usually lies from Salazar's Own.

"Yes, Professor, I cursed Mulciber." Hermione answered politely. She was prepared to lie to her friend but not to back-talk to her.

"And why, pray tell?" Professor McGonagall had been told faradiddles by some of the most forked-tongued students to ever disgrace her school. Ophelia Varinen's calm admission did not sit right.

"He propositioned me. I have not previously heard such language." She tilted her chin up, the picture of offended dignity. Theo reached across and took her hand in a fraternal gesture of concern.

"Our good reputation is paramount, Professor." He paraphrased his father and marvelled at how clammy Granger's hand was. "My sister's response was all I could have wished, to give a clear statement to anyone else seeking to take advantage."

"And are we to expect honour duels in the corridors next?" McGonagall demanded acerbically. The European pure-bloods had become even more hidebound after Grindelwald's defeat. She'd heard Durmstrang now required sponsors to act as guarantors for half-blood students.

"If necessary, yes. Though after Mulciber, I believe the message has been understood." Hermione would cheerfully pistols-at-dawn anyone who called her out. The stakes were that high.

"Did Prospero Mulciber curse, hex or jinx you in any way?" Long experience of student prevarication caused her to ask a very specific question.

"No, Professor."

"You realise you are facing considerable detentions for attacking another student, Miss Varinen. Do you wish to reconsider your answer?" Slytherins covering for other Slytherins was nothing new. Minerva wondered what the girl hoped to gain, or whether she had been coerced into denial.

"No, Professor."

"Very well. Five weeks detention, to be served with your Head of House." The length of the detention was fairly stiff but Horace was notoriously slack if he took a shine to a student. And Mulciber had deserved it. Minerva had been very pleased to be too busy to immediately rescue the predatory reprobate from his bindings. "Dismissed."

Hermione and Theo left with alacrity. They ducked behind a tapestry into one of the 'snogging niches' that allowed the amorous a token of privacy outside their Common Rooms.

"Hold your breath." Theo advised her as Granger seemed to be hyperventilating.

"Not helping." Hermione gasped trying to calm down. She wanted to rush back into Minerva's office and tell her everything. Professor McGonagall was completely trustworthy.

But she would tell Dumbledore.

"You'll be able to borrow from the Potions store while you're assisting Slughorn." He tried to be helpful, unsure what a woman needed at a moment like this. A stiff drink was tempting.

"You spin this to our advantage. I want Mulciber gelded or on a very short leash." Taking a heaving breath in, Hermione exhaled slowly. "That was like being beaten with nettles. She's my friend! She'd help us!"

"But you aren't going to tell her." Theo didn't have to ask the question. Granger wasn't going to tell anyone.

"No." Hermione sighed. "I'm going to be a good little snake and play the influence game to keep the other vipers off our backs. I don't know how you stand it."

"Pure-blood, few friends, plenty of books." He smirked. "Ready for the snake pit?"

"It wouldn't be so bad down there with better lighting." She cast another braiding charm on her hair in case of wisps and straightened her uniform. "Every time I look out a window I think I'm in a fish bowl."

"That's ambience, dear sister." Theo held the tapestry aside for her as they left the niche.

"It's incipient eye-strain and a lack of vitamin D." Hermione retorted. She felt much more composed by the time they reached the dungeon. They could have drawn this out by returning to the library but the 'not official' visit from Talkalot suggested the Seventh Years were keen to start the year with a united front.

Delilah Greengrass and Balendin Wilkes, the Seventh Year Prefects, were playing chess. They just happened to be in the chairs nearest the door. Not camped out there waiting at all.

Hermione waited patiently through the greetings and the chit-chat and the manoeuvring. Theo was good. Orpheus commented idly on English manners, Wilkes assured him Mulciber had simply meant to compliment a pretty girl and Greengrass giggled. They all looked towards Hermione to give the final line in the performance.

"It was so distressing, it's all a bit of a blur." Hermione provided obligingly. She and Theo were allowed to go to their quiet corner. None of the other Slytherins present said a damn thing but they had heard everything.

No one bothered them as they laboured through the Divination text from Fourth Year. Most of it was waffle, esoteric theories about aether and the four humours. Some portentous nonsense mixed in with some sensible geomancy. Hermione made note of that. They would have to check the exact position where they transited through time for ley lines.

Snape reeled into the common room holding a bloody handkerchief to his mouth. Hermione diagnosed his shaky gait was due to a fading Dancing Feet charm. He went directly to the boys' dormitory. No one offered any sympathy but there was a significant look between Avery and a lanky wizard lounging on a shadowed settee. The other boy sat up, bringing his head into the pool of light from a table lamp, and noticed her staring at him.

"Hello, beautiful." His mouth quirked. Hermione's mouth set into a grimace as she looked away. Noticing the older boy's interest, Avery turned to meet Orpheus's cold gaze.

"Why don't you see to your friend?" Theo suggested, suspecting whoever had attacked Snape hadn't limited themselves to Tarantallegra.

"Suck my cock, Varinen." Avery sneered, unwilling to be seen doing the new arrival's bidding.

"I am very tired of the lack of manners in this House." Hermione snapped her book shut and drew her wand. "Expelliarmus! Silencio!"

She slashed her vine wood through the air at Avery, aware she was taking out her anger on the wrong target. She wanted to hurt the other boy, who would be the man who'd drag them to Bellatrix. After the battle, they'd found his body in the wreckage of the bridge, smashed together with so many others he was only identifiable by the red streak in his brown hair.

"Candeo!" Hermione ended with a Bedazzling hex, filling Avery's vision with tiny mirrors that shone and blinded. Quite moderate, really, she thought as she made herself lower her arm. "Would someone kindly escort Avery to his room and check on Snape? Courtesy, gentlemen. It sets us above the commons."


	9. Beadle

Out of pride, Hermione returned to her chair after her outburst and stuck out another half hour in the Common Room before retiring to the girls' dorm. It was early so she could crawl into her bed unobserved. She pulled the curtains closed, cast privacy spells and sobbed.

Hermione cried from her own fright at seeing the Snatcher. She cried for betraying McGonagall's trust in her by keeping secrets. She cried for James and Lily and Sirius and Remus. She cried for Caradoc Dearborn, a brave Phoenix murdered by Death Eaters, whose body would never be found and for Regulus Black, who would die trying to thwart an evil he'd willingly followed.

She clutched her pillow to her and wished more than anything that Harry and Ron were with her. They could face the worst together. But Harry and Ron didn't exist. Might never exist if she or Nott did something wrong. She could unmake her best friends without even knowing what she'd done.

She wept until her throat was raw and she was choking for breath, finally succumbing to exhausted sleep after midnight still in her uniform.

Her alarm woke her and pride again compelled her. Hermione dragged herself to the bathroom. She looked a fright with red eyes and elf-lock hair. A hot shower could only do so much. When she cast the braiding charm her concentration wavered, leaving her with a serpent's nest of plaits. Forewarned, the witch focused very intently on the spell to remove eye-strain, which took care of most of the redness. Muggle eye drops would've been easier.

Hermione got dressed, envied her still slumbering dorm-mates then decided she needed some fresh air. Grabbing her book bag, she left the dungeons, trekking all the way up to the Astronomy Tower to breathe.

If they were going to keep their secret, she had to rein herself in. Reacting because of events that hadn't happened yet was so far beyond sensible it was ludicrous. Throwing a tantrum would solve nothing. Throwing herself off the Tower wouldn't help either, and truthfully she wasn't tempted.

It would be nice if everything just stopped, though. Mintumble had been in the fifteenth century for five days and twenty-five people had been unborn. She and Theo had been in 1976 for a week, and she could admit now that she'd hoped they would snap back to their own time after the same duration away as the unfortunate Unspeakable.

"Miss Varinen?" A boy's voice not yet broken interrupted her pensive musings. Hermione turned her head, confirmed it was Regulus Black then made a desultory wave he could interpret as either greeting or beckoning.

He joined her at the railing, staring out at the morning sun on the lake. Regulus had left a decorous arm's length between them. The chivalrous gesture made her smile wryly.

"Good morning." It seemed polite to acknowledge him with more than a jerk of a hand. "You're up early."

"This is my OWL year. I feel I need every moment. I have to do well." He didn't say 'better than my brother' but Hermione heard it.

"Pace yourself." She advised, having never managed to do that personally. Hermione laughed softly at her own postcognition. "And don't spend too much time with Quidditch. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it is just a game."

"One at which we're being trounced." Regulus groused then glanced at the older girl. Ophelia was smiling fondly at him, which was something quite new from a suitable young lady. He was a Black, so of course he merited the best, but Sirius was the popular one. "Do you follow Quidditch?"

"Only if I'm dragged." On average, she spent more of a given game worrying than cheering. Even victories were exhausting when Harry or Ron were playing.

"Oh." Regulus stalled, unsure now what to say. The socially appropriate platitudes drilled into him seemed stilted. His mother approved of the Varinens, mostly he suspected because they'd helped her pretend Sirius wasn't causing as big a scene as he was. Most of ladies who came to tea seemed to think it was his mother's fault his brother enjoyed slumming. They always commented on it.

"I should go to the library." Hermione took a last deep breath of the crisp air. She and Theo had agreed to stay together as much as possible. Pining in the Tower, where so much had ended, was self-indulgent moping.

"Would you allow me to escort you, Miss Varinen?" He offered with what he hoped was suave nonchalance. It probably wasn't but she was kind enough not to laugh.

"Certainly." She would have preferred not but Theo had been quite intense about the etiquette of walking. Nicely brought up young witches did not refuse the arm of a wizard of their social class. Not without simultaneously giving the impression they were snubbing him, up to something and/or wanton. Hermione thought pure-bloods collectively needed some fresh air too.

They walked together, heading down to the Great Hall as it was easier to go with the tide of students than against it. Breakfast hadn't started yet but the novelty of having food just appear hadn't worn off for many of the Muggle-borns and half-bloods.

Regulus put on a well-crafted sneer as they were jostled by a group of Gryffindor First Years. Hermione marvelled at how small they were, how loud and how very very young. She was reminded of Colin Creevey and the peace she found watching the sunrise over the mountains disintegrated.

"Finally found yourself a bird, little brother?" The mocking question sailed over the chatter in the hall. Hermione choked back a word she did not want any nearby eleven year olds to learn from her. Regulus stiffened, stepping between her and his approaching brother.

Sirius, flanked by Remus and Pettigrew, swaggered through the crowd. He looked like he had just rolled out of bed, with hair artfully tousled and tie askew. He was grinning, his face alight with joie de vivre in a way she'd rarely seen except when he was looking at Harry.

"Your vulgarity ill suits you, brother." Regulus snarled, already on the defensive as they were outnumbered. The Marauders had a habit of ambushing their targets to which Severus could amply attest.

"I think it does suit me. Like this tie." Sirius waved his red and gold necktie. "Brings out the roses in my cheeks, don't you think, Varinen?"

"It brings out your cheek." Hermione snapped, too wrung-out to deal with his nonsense this morning.

"Oh, the viper bites." He grinned, enjoying his snake-baiting immensely. "Maybe if I ask nicely, she'll give me another little nibble." He said aside to his friends. Peter laughed. Remus shifted uncomfortably. It was only a few days to the full moon. He didn't want to think about girls, particularly ones who glared at him challengingly.

"Mother raised you better than to talk about a lady like that." Regulus was angry and embarrassed that his brother was making fun of one of the few girls who would talk to him. There weren't many pure-blood young women who hadn't been warned off because of his family's politics or because of Sirius's behaviour. Andromeda had been bad enough but two in one generation had gossips talking about the madness of the House of Black.

"Mother can kiss my arse." Sirius said with great enjoyment. He was back at Hogwarts after a horrendous summer of shouting, guilt and punishment hexes. He was free again. He felt like a phoenix reborn.

"This is where you say 'two points from Gryffindor for improper language', Lupin." Snape's snide voice filled the quiet in the wake of Sirius's declaration. The black haired boy strode through the throng to reinforce his Housemates. "Try to remember you are a Prefect."

"Slither off, Snivellus. My brother and I are having a private conversation." He might be a Gryffindor but Sirius could do the conceited pure-blood dismissal of his lessers as proficiently as anyone in green.

"Black and I are going to library. Would you care to join us, Snape?" Hermione asked quickly, hearing the distinctive cadence of Professor McGonagall's footsteps approaching. Something in her voice gave a hint to the other Slytherins that not being there would be sensible. As a group, they turned to go.

Pettigrew, wanting to curry favour with his bolder friend, cast a quick Levicorpus at Snape. He was fair game whereas it had been agreed that only Sirius could hex Regulus. If the Slytherin cast first, all bets were off but it still mattered to Sirius that his little brother wasn't picked on by anyone except him. And Peter didn't like hexing girls.

Snape stumbled as his leg was jerked out from under him by an invisible force intent on hoisting him up by his ankle. He regretted bringing that jinx to the attention of his fellow students by using it last year. Now everyone knew it. With duelling honed reflexes, he pulled out his wand to cast the counter-jinx.

Before his other foot was off the ground, someone else cast Liberacorpus. Snape straightened and noted Ophelia Varinen sliding her wand back up her sleeve as she herded them from the hall. He filed that observation away.

There was no reason why she couldn't know the counter to an obscure jinx he had found in a travelogue of an 18th century wizard's adventures on the Barbary coast. Bandits had used the jinx to waylay travellers, sometimes literally shaking them down for money. No reason, but Snape resolved to watch the twins carefully.

Orpheus Varinen met them in the library, looking more perturbed than a brother should at being denied the company of his sister for less than an hour. He didn't do anything so ostentatious as grabbing her arm and dragging her aside but Snape noticed another of those looks pass between the Varinens. They again spoke in gaps.

"It wasn't long." Hermione defended herself. "I had to go up there, anyway."

"We aren't here to sightsee." Theo scolded, disgusted by how relieved he was Granger was still here. The worry that she had disappeared back into the future had needled him since he'd not seen her in the Common Room. Or the hall. Or the library. Being marooned was terrible. Being marooned alone was worse.

"We would've been here sooner except we were waylaid by my blood-traitor brother." Regulus interrupted. He didn't want either Varinen to think he thought they'd needed to retreat. Or that he wasn't prepared to curse his own disloyal kin. When the Dark Lord came to power, he would see all betrayers punished.

"Keep your voice down." The three older Slytherins spoke almost in tune. Their shared moment of discretion settled Regulus's nerves. He was among friends. Like-minded pure-bloods, who doubtless understood how the world needed to change.

The quartet got an hour of review done before hastening to breakfast and thence to their separate lessons. With the air of a man going to his own funeral, Theo followed Hermione into the Muggle Studies classroom.

Professor Mordicus Egg was of the bearded variety of wizards. His was reddish-brown, meticulously groomed and halfway down his shirt. He combed his fingers through it when he was irritated, a habit he demonstrated throughout the lesson as paper airplanes, ping-pong balls and Lego bricks were thrown by largely inattentive students.

Theo and Hermione, the only green in a sea of yellow and red, hunkered down in the back row near a cabinet displaying vacuum cleaners. Together they had read through the textbook, the Philosophy of the Mundane, and as the lecture progressed disjointedly it became clear Professor Egg believed in out of class research.

"Perfect." Theo remarked softly as the teacher again referred to a book other than the text he had written. They had ample excuse now to linger in the library. "Are there any Muggle books in the Restricted Section?"

"None." Hermione had scoured the Restricted Section in her search for information on Horcuxes. "Lots of books on what to do with Muggles." She added grimly. "None germane to the study of them."

"Do you have an observation to make on the colonisation of Africa, Miss Varinen?" Professor Egg asked with determined patience. Few Slytherins persisted with his class, despite its reputation as an easy option, and he did not encourage them to linger. The Crouch boy had some promise and would likely follow his father into the Ministry. These two did not seem the type.

"It's not Tanganyika any more, sir. After the British administration left, the country merged with the Zanzibar Archipelago to become Tanzania." Hermione had been paying attention while trying not to wince at the outdated material. "Quite a few of the former colonies renamed themselves."

"Five points to Slytherin." It was difficult to see his smile behind his beard but the Professor seemed pleased. "Can anyone else name a country that changed its name after ejecting the colonisers?" There was a general silence. Theo raised his hand. "Mister Varinen, do enlighten the class."

"Botswana, sir. It was the Bechuanaland Protectorate, if you count that as a specific nation." Theo knew that because of the Fourth Year Divination text that had mentioned reading the shoulder blades of oxen and cited one of the best places to get untainted cattle was Bechuanaland. He'd asked Hermione where that was and she had provided the answer.

"Five points to Slytherin." Professor Egg gave the twins a nod, reassured they did not intend to sleep through his lessons. He surveyed the rest of the students in order to give the least dozy an opportunity to win points for their House. He selected a Hufflepuff with a quill in hand. "Mister Westenberg, do you have anything to contribute?"

Hermione didn't hear what Lewis Westenberg had to say. She couldn't hear anything over her own thunderous pulse. Not even in this most non-magical of subjects could she escape reminders of what would happen. She'd met the Westenberg family only twice. Lewis and his wife Maisie hadn't been in the Order but they'd sheltered Order members generously. And had been killed for it.

"One of yours?" Theo asked, catching her quill when it rolled out of her nerveless fingers. She nodded. He sat in silence taking notes for them both until his 'sister' recovered enough to reclaim her writing implement.

Homework was a deceptively simple assignment to list African countries and the Muggle nations from which they had gained their independence.

Hermione immediately recognised the sting; magical nations were not necessarily the same as mundane ones. Many wizarding folk referred more to cities than countries or had nebulous ideas of 'France' including all the French speaking people in Europe. The catchment areas of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang was a classic example. They'd been drawn up in the tenth century then just kept.

"I wonder how many of our classmates are going to cite Prussia and Castile as colonial powers." Hermione mused, keeping her head down as the class concluded and the other students rushed out of the room.

"The Muggle-borns will get it right, surely." Theo looked through his notes, uncertain of half the spellings.

"There aren't that many in the class." Hermione was careful with her pronouns. "They don't want to learn about their own history. They want to learn about magic, do magic, be magical. They could turn on the telly or buy a book in the high-street or read a newspaper to learn about their own world. Ours is far more interesting."

"So it's ambitious blood-traitors and slack half-bloods?" He smirked, thinking that with Granger at his side he would be able to easily puzzle out the political ramifications of the collapse of the Muggle Empires. He was already better educated on the topic than he had been a week ago. Theo had previously been completely unaware Muggles were capable of organising anything more complicated than a horde.

Their next class was a free period the 'twins' spent in the library powering through their Arithmancy work and surreptitiously trawling Ministry statutes on time travel. The more they found, the more it became clear what they were looking for would either be very old or very illegal.

"We need to get into the Department of Mysteries." Hermione closed the heavy tome of legislation cautiously. It was thick enough that trapping a finger would bruise.

"After the Restricted Section." Theo agreed. They needed more information. They needed facts. Random oft repeated warnings about instability and undue influence did nothing to further their research. "Rookwood is there by now."

"I know. I..." She stopped suddenly, pulled her wand and flicked it sharply upwards. A rat floated into view, lifted by one of its back legs. It squeaked in alarm. "I do not like rodents."

"Surely a fluffy little bunny would appeal, sister." He had a good, languid tone for Orpheus. Theo could get used to using it. Smugly mellow was probably the best description.

"Rabbits look like they're hiding something." Hermione had been frightened by a teacher dressed as the Easter Bunny at nursery school and had never quite got over her distrust. Making the rabbit costume's cotton tail catch on fire had been her first public episode of accidental magic.

"That rat certainly looks like it's hiding something." Theo cast a Full Body-Bind Curse on the scabrous animal. "Pop it on the Magical Creatures shelf. Someone will tidy it up eventually."

Hermione did as he suggested, putting Pettigrew on the top of the bookcase where she and Theo would have a good view of him from their table. They resumed their Arithmancy homework. After twenty minutes, with no sense of surprise, they noticed the rat was gone. James Potter did have an Invisibility Cloak after all.


	10. Boondoggle

Friday lunch was almost pleasant. Hermione tucked into her fish and chips without having to defend it from elbows or poachers. The people around her were actually using their cutlery. Some attempt at polite conversation was being made.

Berengaria Yaxley was holding court among the Sixth and Seventh Year girls, making a show of tossing her flaxen hair to punctuate her declarations. Mostly on what a chore it was to help her mother prepare for their Samhain ball.

"Still two months away but there's so many details. I had to send for another owl just to keep up with all the letters." She sighed. Being the eldest daughter was so onerous at times. Berengaria glanced at the new girl to see if she was taking the hint. Both Varinens seemed to be fascinated by a Muggle history book. "Reading that trash at the table? Aren't you embarrassed you're studying something so useless?"

"Muggles have a weapon that can kill more than sixty thousand people instantly." Hermione said coldly. If Yaxley thought a party was useful and reading was useless they were never going to get along. "They've used it twice. I'd rather like to understand why, wouldn't you?"

The silence that greeted her snub was profound. Some of that was quiet assessment of whether she was lying or exaggerating. A few students were silently relieved she had shut up Yaxley because they knew they would not be invited to the ball and were sick of hearing about it. Most significantly were the Slytherins who were considering the implications of such a weapon.

"Sixty thousand Muggles." Avery said dismissively. "Hardly a challenge. Give me a weekend and a Av..." The word died with his voice, leaving the Sixth Year mouthing without sound.

"Silencio." Balendin Wilkes shut up his compatriot before he drew the attention of the teachers. "Try not to sound as foolish as you are, Avery." He fixed the Varinens with a level stare. "We will discuss this later in the Common Room."

The Prefect's edict restored the Slytherin table to normal luncheon conduct. Hermione sat in misery, appetite gone and mind whirling. Theo waited a few minutes for decorum's sake then excused himself and his 'sister'.

They walked out of the Hall casually, or as casually as Hermione could manage while cursing herself inwardly. Giving Death Eaters strategic tips on how to destroy the world because a teenage girl annoyed her, she ought to Silence herself.

"Is it true?" Theo asked when they had reached the as yet still empty Alchemy classroom and he'd cast a Muffliato.

"It's worse than fiendfyre. It ignites the air." Hermione explained while her internal monologue of self-recrimination continued. "Why can't I keep my mouth shut? I always have to say something. Know-it-all!"

"Do you think we're right to fear Muggles?"

Hermione looked at him sharply. She'd forgotten he wore that bastard's brand on his arm. That he had more in common with Avery and Rosier and damn it Wilkes too.

"Yes." She stated firmly. "But not for the reasons you think. Muggles want to believe in magic. They'd be delighted to discover it's real. I was." Hermione closed her eyes for a moment but there simply wasn't a better way to say this. "And when they find out what arse-holes you are about it, they'll resent you."

"As simple as that? They'll despise us for our abilities?" Theo smirked. Being mocked for being adept was nothing new to him.

"It's not about the spells or even the power. It all comes down to the exclusion. We could do so much with our magic and we don't. We argue about pedigrees like we're show dogs." She shook her head. He probably wouldn't understand. No one did except other Muggle-borns. "We could make the world a utopia in so many ways. Instead we've had two wars in twenty years over a snake-man with daddy issues."

"You sound like Grindelwald. He wanted to rule the world with magic." In his youth, his father had admired Gellert Grindelwald and had rued the victory that had given Dumbledore a springboard to political influence.

"I don't want to rule. I want to be honest. To be myself. To come out of the closet." Hermione saw he didn't understand the reference. Two worlds, she reminded herself. "I want to go home."

"So do I." Theo said passionately. "I want this to be over. As much as you do. You have to trust me."

"I don't trust myself right now." She sagged against the wall. "I've never wanted to run away from school before."

"You weren't here under the Carrows." He tried to make it a wry sort of joke but it wasn't very funny. The Death Eater siblings had turned Hogwarts into a parody of itself. Theo had been relieved, honestly relieved, to be called away to attend the Dark Lord. He looked like the monster he was.

"Someone's coming." Hermione stood up, straightening her tie. Her green tie. Fuck it, time for some serpentine sang froid. "Drop the Muffliato. If we use it too often, someone might be able to copy it."

The someone, in both cases, was Severus Snape. He regarded the Varinens with a blandly neutral expression they mirrored. The three in green had only to wait a minute or so before they were joined by three students in blue. It seemed much longer.

The Ravenclaws politely introduced themselves to the new Slytherins. Hermione was grateful not to recognise any of their names from the war, though Smethwyck seemed familiar.

Heralded by a strong smell of sulphur, their teacher surged up the final staircase to the fourth floor and hailed the small group as he approached.

"Apologies, running late. Had to go all the way down to the dungeon to get some supplies." The swarthy wizard huffed. "Argo Pyrites, same as on the book." He twitched his head in the direction of the text in Smethwyck's hands; Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science. "I've not taught before so we'll all be learning."

"Sir, if you're not a Professor, what should we call you?" Stebbins asked, keen to get things right.

"Oh, Pyrites will do. Or sir. There's only eight of us so no sense in standing on our dignity." His sharp eyes flicked over his students. "Right, show of hands, I should have an Aubrey, a Lupin, a Smethwyck, a Snape, a Stebbins and two Varinens. Who's missing?"

"Lupin, sir." Snape answered with satisfaction. "He's one of the Gryffindor Prefects."

"Well, a Prefect should know how to tell the time. Two points from Gryffindor for tardiness." Pyrites shooed them into the classroom. "It was a bit stale this morning so I opened the windows and cast a useful zephyr charm. I'll give a demonstration when everyone's here."

Remus Lupin showed up out of breath fifteen minutes late, apologised without giving an excuse, and took a seat at a table by himself. He glared at the Slytherins but made no remark. For their part, the trio in green ignored him.

Pyrites walked them through the handling protocol for the syllabus's toxic and noxious substances, teaching them the safety spells he wanted them to use. His 'at all times' reminded Hermione of Moody's 'constant vigilance'. He had them start on preparing incense bases and simple fumes.

They were all quite fragrant by the end of the class and when the twins, Snape and Aubrey walked into the Arithmancy lesson directly afterwards, there was quite a bit of coughing. Once they had handed in their previous day's assignment, Vector allowed them to go change as cleaning spells failed to diminish the aromatic bouquet.

The quick trip to the dungeon and back was done without conversation. Snape seemed to be intent on observing them, which prompted Theo and Hermione to be reticent even with each other. They changed and returned to Arithmancy as though they had taken a vow of silence.

The compound equation to which they had all contributed was on the blackboard and Professor Vector was simplifying the variables across several operations. The 'twins' had done this exercise before and knew the process. They kept their heads down, hoping not to be called upon. Their tactic worked until Vector assigned partners for the next stage of the equation.

"Misters Aubrey, Gudgeon, and Snape, you have the first section. Misses Evans, Gupta, and Varinen, the second section. Mister Varinen and Misses Hobday and Orpington, the third." Vector announced then gathered her notes, signalling the end of the lesson. And that there would be no appeal against the divisions.

Hermione sat at her desk breathing slowly. She had to work with Lily Evans for a week. Six days, technically. Five, as she had detention tomorrow. She could last five days. So long as she didn't look Lily in the eye and see Harry staring back at her.

Fortunately her snub of Marlene McKinnon had got Evans offside. It was Miss Gupta of Ravenclaw who approached to arrange their first meeting. Hermione obligingly agreed to Sunday at 3pm, her knuckles white on her quill. Snape sneered at her and didn't walk with them to the library.

After the rat incident, they chose another table past the Ancient Runes section where only the erudite or lost trod. They both cast a Muffliato then unpacked their books and stared at them dejectedly.

"Snape suspects something." Theo found his voice first. "When we were getting dressed, he tugged on his cuffs. He does that when he's aligning his thoughts."

"I'm going to have to explain nuclear physics in a way that sounds both intimidating and unappealing. I don't want some Death Eater using the Imperius to get launch codes." Hermione aired her foremost worry too.

"Avery's made his stance clear. He'll belittle the idea and us." They could use that, if they could stomach it. "Mulciber will side with him to take you down a peg. But they're opportunists and I'd wager the others know it."

"What about Wilkes?" She knew he was, or would be, a Death Eater and that he'd died in the first war but little else.

"My father spoke well of him. He stood and fought. He'll want to hear about this Muggle weapon but from what I know, he likes to keep the fight personal." Theo frowned. He would've liked to be more sure but Balendin Wilkes had been killed by Aurors a month before he was born.

"Scabior didn't strike me as an intellectual." Hermione said with some vitriol. "Who will we be talking to, really?"

"All the Seventh Years will be reporting to their parents regularly. Even the ones not recruited will be keen to keep their families informed. Some will report to Tom." He opened his Alchemy text to give the illusion of study. "That may be to our advantage. Third-hand technical details will sound like nonsense."

"I wish I'd bitten my tongue and let that stupid girl have her little triumph." Her urge to lecture was overpowering at times. "She reminds me of Lavender. She does the same irritating thing with her hair."

"She's her mother. Berengaria Yaxley married Sage Brown right out of school. The Yaxleys weren't happy, until Tom left, then it was all smiles." Theo shrugged. He'd assumed Granger knew this as she's shared a dorm with the girl for six years. "The Browns are an old, country family. Politically neutral."

"Lavender and I didn't really talk, not unless it was to criticise what I was wearing." Hermione regretted that in a abstract sense though she wasn't certain if that was because Lavender had died. If they'd had the chance to build a friendship, would they?

"You always looked presentable." When he had started noticing what girls wore, he had noticed that Granger looked like a young lady not a clown or a barmaid.

"Damning with faint praise." She smirked. Their chat had helped her clear her head a little. "So I confound them with Muggle nonsense in my best rhetorical style?"

"I think so. We're not trying to be obliging." Flipping the pages in his book to the relevant section, he set the chapter between them. "Incenses of meditation."

"We can make that in class with minimal notice. It's not essential." But it would help, Hermione added mentally. Achieving a serene mind at the moment was herculean. The first step in becoming an Animagus was visualising one's spirit totem. Right now, she was fairly sure her inner animal was a parrot.

Decision made, the 'twins' reviewed what they would need and the first steps of the process. Then they went to dinner, deliberately ignoring the other Slytherins in favour of reading yet more of their Divination texts.

The calculated disregard lasted most of the evening as no one from their House approached them in the library. Their new nook seemed to be remote enough no person or rodent chanced across them. Hermione made some notes from the few Muggle science books available and from her own recollections of documentaries, science fiction and primary school.

When Orpheus and Ophelia Varinen finally graced their Housemates with their presence at past ten o'clock, there was just a small group of 'interested parties' waiting for them. The Seventh Years were all present but only Rosier and Clotilde Travers of the Sixth Years. And a tired looking Fourth Year, press-ganged because he was taking Muggle Studies at his father's insistence.

Theo stood flanking his 'sister' as she gave a sharp lecture on something. Ions were mentioned. Atoms featured quite often. Mention of the massive wild magic storm that had isolated Japan from the rest of the wizarding world for weeks got some interest, but that was followed up with an explanation of radiation that made eyes glaze.

He thought it was brilliant.

Wilkes had to ask Hermione twice to stop and when she finally did, all Barty Junior could do to confirm what she said was nod wearily. He was sent to bed, leaving the older students to assess the Varinens speculatively.

"Why are you so interested in what Muggles do to themselves?" Delilah Greengrass had taken notes because her parents had a very active interest in Hogwarts. Mostly so they could curry favour with the appropriate people. Whether the Varinens were appropriate people was not up to Delilah. But she was going to insist on a nice present for having to endure 'fizz-icks'.

"Because I can count." Hermione was still in didactic mode and enunciated crisply. "There are billions of them."

"They could be a resource or a plague." Theo spoke up, smoothly supporting Granger with some Slytherin pragmatism. "Mulciber and Avery can play with their Unforgivables for a century and gain nothing. My sister and I have better plans."

No one asked them to share their plans. That surprised Hermione, until she realised that upfront collaboration was not how Slytherins worked. Back-room deals and quiet conspiracies were the Snakes' style.

The witch went to her dorm, changed in the bathroom and drew her curtains. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to think. Hermione slumbered fitfully and woke suddenly, heart hammering, as a nameless feeling of dread made sweat prickle on her skin. It was pitch dark, silent except for the susurrus of breathing.

Getting up, she would not lie there fearful, the Muggle-born scanned the room. Four beds, three occupied by young women deeply asleep. Her scar stung like fire as she belted her dressing gown over her nightie.

"Visus Noctis." Hermione murmured, tapping herself between her brows. Stumbling through gloomy corridors with only a Lumos to show the way had never been fun. After the fight in the Department of Mysteries, she'd begun work on a spell that gave night vision without illumination. She'd finished it over summer and was pleased except for the short range.

It would do to navigate the Slytherin Dungeons. Hermione crept slowly out of the dorm into the wide corridor that connected the Sixth Year girls to the other Years. Dark here too. Was it supposed to be?

Hermione silenced the door to the Common Room before opening it. Starlight reflected through the water beyond the windows glowed like liquid silver but illuminated only an empty room.

She would go into the unknown. But going into the unknown alone was foolish. Going into the boys' dorm would cause a lot of problems. Hermione hesitated, trying to convince herself what she felt was just the dregs of a nightmare.

Except it wasn't.

Casting a Quietening Charm on herself, Hermione sneaked into the boys' dormitory. Dark too, with a musty odour of unwashed socks and stale food. She was familiar with that smell from living with Ron and Harry. Evidently even aristocratic boys were slovens at heart.

Of the five beds in the Sixth Year dorm, two had their curtains drawn. By an unlucky quirk of distribution, all the boys were dark haired. Avery was the lightest and Snape was the darkest but under night vision the shades were difficult to distinguish.

This was like a logic puzzle. Four Death Eaters, one photographer. Two, perhaps three, she could trust. And those she could see were all stirring restlessly as though they sensed something too. Hermione dismissed her night vision spell and lit the room with Lumos Maxima.

Rosier, Snape and Theo woke suddenly, all reaching for their wands. Urquart and thankfully Avery did not emerge from their curtains.

"I need to talk to you." Hermione told her 'brother' urgently.

"What bloody time do you call this?" Rosier demanded, face wan from more than sleep. He was sweating even though the room was cool.

Theo got up and put his socks and shoes on quickly. He pulled a sweater on too as while the days were still warm, the nights were cold. The bone-deep sense of wrongness that had invaded his dreams lingered. He left with Granger without question.

In the Common Room, they stood almost nose to glass with the window looking into the lake. They could both feel it. Dark Magic. Not calling to them. This dread wasn't a lure. It was an aura.

"It woke me up. It's strong." Hermione tried to ignore the shivers prickling down her spine. She wanted to go to her bed and pull the covers over her head until the bad thing went away.

"We have to find the source." Theo agreed with her unspoken intention. "If it's there, at that place, we could be in serious trouble."

"An echo?" She wondered. He shrugged. It was possible. Who knew what the temporal ripples disturbed? They'd turned from the window to leave when someone spoke behind them.

"Of what?" Severus asked the twins and wondered what they were omitting from their conversation. The lacunae in their speech were most noticeable when they were hiding something. Like in their whispered chat in the Potions laboratory.

"That is what we mean to discover." Theo answered then turned his attention to Rosier, standing a pace behind Snape with his wand lit. He was also dressed to go out. "No one invited you."

"I can feel it too, and I don't need your permission." He and Snape cast Quietening Charms on themselves. Hermione debated with herself about sharing her night vision spell but as she and Theo had been essentially poaching Snape's Muffliato, it seemed fair.

"Here, watch me." She demonstrated the wand movements slowly. "The incantation is 'visus noctis'. Cast it once Rosier's Lumos fades."

Snape and Theo got it the first time, Rosier on his second attempt. They crept out of the Common Room. The ominous feeling drew them through the dungeons then onwards, up the stairs to the ground floor.

"It's outside." Theo murmured when they reached the Great Hall and paused to orient themselves. They headed towards the main entrance then out to Black Lake, with the dread leading them onwards past the still waters.

"The boundary wards?" Hermione murmured too, though the Quietening Charm covered most of the noise they made.

"For something to be felt here, at that distance, the power would have to be immense." Snape was not discounting that possibility but he didn't think it likely.

"Multiple sources." Theo and Hermione said at the same time, thinking what lay beyond the lake. "Hogsmeade."

When they reached the path to the village, they weren't the only ones awake. Panicked people streamed towards Hogwarts, stumbling in their haste or the after-effects of a Cruciatus Curse. Billowing gangrenous green, Dark Marks filled the sky above almost every building in the only fully magical settlement in Britain.


	11. Benison

It was like she had never left. Hermione knew exactly what to do. There were some irksome details such as her only reinforcements being three teenage Death Eaters but she could work around that.

"Expecto Patronum!" Her otter, opalescent and vivacious, was a beacon in the darkness. She sent the spectral animal towards Hogwarts with a message for Professor McGonagall to raise the alarm.

"Surreptitiously skiving back to the dungeons is off the cards, then?" Theo remarked, secretly relieved Granger had made the choice for him. He would have cavilled and fretted then slunk away thinking himself craven.

"We'd be caught." Hermione, the veteran of many after-curfew shenanigans, was positive. "Better to help." She turned to face Snape and Rosier. "Triage and crowd control, and some altruism if you can fake it."

"We'll be blamed." Rosier knew no good deed went unpunished if you were a Slytherin. And his father was out there, masked. He should have stayed in bed and let the unseen terrors pass by unseen. Except he was a Rosier, and Rosiers embraced the darkness.

"We have dozens of witnesses to say we were here, in our pyjamas, trying to help." She shrugged. If he wanted to risk slithering back to his bed she would not stop him. Hermione strode towards the fleeing survivors, casting an Amplifying Charm so she could rally them.

"Leave if you like, gentlemen." Theo spoke without rancour. "I'm staying so I can rub this in the noses of the Gryffindors sleeping safe in their tower." He smiled at the mental picture, aware of his own vindictive nature. "And because I find it interesting we four were the only ones drawn here."

With that aside to inspire some mistrust, Theo went to aid Granger. He sought out the villagers who had been subject to the Cruciatus as he'd had far too much practise in healing the after-effects of that curse.

Snape and Rosier joined them, conspicuously helpful. They didn't have much time to situate themselves plausibly before McGonagall and the other Professors answered the call. Snape was levitating a badly burned man while Rosier, cannily, was carrying a small child as he comforted a weeping woman. They were passed by with barely a glance as the teachers spread out to defend the survivors.

The 'twins' had gone further down the path to the edge of the village, herding those who could stagger onwards towards safety and doing what they could for the wounded. Theo was on his knees beside Madam Scrivenshaft, proprietor of the eponymous Quill Shop, trying to stop the bleeding from a curse when a flash of green light made him look up.

A figure in a black robe, the hem smouldering strode out of the gloom at the edge of the Noctis Visus. He was tall and wore a mask Theo didn't recognise, and was methodically killing anyone too hurt to escape. Madam Scrivenshaft saw him too.

"Run, lad." She gasped, grey faced from pain and blood loss. "Please, run."

"OPHELIA!" Theo shouted. He would've called for Hermione by her real name but the memory charms they'd cast on each other prevented slip-ups even in extremis.

And Granger came to his rescue. She stumbled out of a building dragging someone with her, but with a hand free for casting because she had done this before and some things you always remembered.

"Expulso!" Hermione flung the curse in the direction of the Death Eater, not expecting to hit him. Her spell bounced off his shielding and hit the ground. Which exploded, sending the wizard staggering backwards.

"Diffindo!" Theo spared a moment to curse the Death Eater before again casting Vulnera Sanentur on the bleeding witch. Snape had taught all young recruits the healing spell but few could manage more than clotting. Theo was struggling with it now, suspecting there was something lacking in him.

"I'll do it." His sister seemed to sense the trouble he was having. Hermione lowered Emile Zonko to the ground beside Madam Scrivenshaft. The semi-conscious wizard moaned. "Keep that bastard off us."

Theo had a fleeting moment of conflict between his political views and his self-preservation. The Death Eater's snarled expletive ended the young wizard's existential crisis. Self-preservation won.

Whoever it was in the robe was good but flashy. Theo had an aversion to gratuitous wand waving. The man in the mask did not, which told the Slytherin his opponent was either young or reckless. Theo feinted left as though he was going for the cover of a garden wall. The Death Eater hit the drystone with a Reductor Curse, adding to the haze in the air.

And blocking his view of Theo, who had dropped to the grass as soon as the wall shattered. He sent a Slicing Hex low, skimming across the cobbles to hamstring his foe. The Death Eater cried out in pain, wobbled and Disapparated.

"Homenum Revelio!" Theo was not by nature a trusting person. You didn't have to Apparate very far to be out of sight. His spell showed only recumbent forms and several people in the distance running. He hurried back to Hermione.

No one asked any inconvenient questions until much later, after the wounded had been Apparated to St Mungo's and the fires extinguished. It was in the soft pink light of dawn that the four Slytherins found themselves put to the question.

They were grimy and bloody and cold. Hermione had given her dressing gown to a witch who'd fled her house in her underclothes. Snape had a reddening bruise on his chin where he had been hit by a wizard having a seizure. Rosier's silk pyjamas were torn at both knees. Theo had transfigured his sweater into a blanket for a child. None looked halfway to respectable. Professor Sprout hugged them all.

"Pomona, while I agree they did sterling work, I would like to know why four students came to be here." Minerva McGonagall was not angry. She was too upset to be wrathful towards anyone but He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named. However, if she had to pick a quartet to be found selflessly healing the injured, she would have been well down the school roster before choosing Rosier, Snape and the newcomers.

"My sister had a vision, ma'am." Theo answered. He'd given their explanation some thought. If he and Hermione were going to suffer through Divination they might as well start the obfuscation early.

"And this vision was sufficiently poignant and detailed all of you felt compelled to leave your dormitories in the middle of the night and go to Hogsmeade?" She would have preferred to dismiss that sort of balderdash outright but she had seen stranger things.

"Miss Varinen was determined to follow the vision. It seemed a caddish thing to let her go alone." Rosier played on pure-blood chivalry further by shrugging off his sweater and offering it to the witch, who was shivering in just a nightgown.

"I was drawn to the path, Professor." Hermione stuttered, hoping to pass her hesitation off as her teeth chattering in the chill morning. She accepted Rosier's sweater without qualm.

"Tumult calls to the sensitive, Minerva." An elderly witch in deep purple robes drifted over to the small, sooty group. She was fully dressed unlike everyone else milling about the village and brought a hamper full of sandwiches and flasks of tea.

"Thank you, Cassandra." The Scottish witch was starchily polite. While she didn't have much truck with foretelling or the rest of the esoteric tomfoolery, she had to concede there were those with the Gift. And hot, sweet tea was always welcome. "The four of you will report to me after breakfast. So back to the Castle."

The Slytherins tramped away, hoping to get to the dungeons before anyone noticed their dishevelled state. Being smug about being seen to be heroes was better done well dressed. Privately, all four of the reluctant paramedics wanted to scour the memory of blood off their skin.

Unfortunately, they had to walk through the early breakfast crowd and their appearance caused a plethora of comments. Hermione gritted her teeth at the catcalls and the unfunny marriage proposals. The three boys faired little better being hailed with animal noises and inquiries how the farm was going.

The Slytherin dormitory was less raucous as many of their peers would not mistake dried blood for dirt. Mutely, the four went to their respective dorms and cleaned up.

Hermione unabashedly hogged the bathroom, washing and Scourgifying herself until she was certain she no longer smelled of smoke. The focus she had felt during the event had ebbed, leaving her shattered and plagued by recollection.

Ron after Splinching. Harry carried by Hagrid. The dead after the Battle of Hogwarts. She had promised herself one safe, dull year at school during which she could pick up the pieces of her life and quilt them back into place.

Someone hammered genteelly on the bathroom door. Hermione was impressed at the combination of abrupt demand and ladylike decorum. She turned off the water, wrapped a towel around herself, picked up her wand and opened the door.

"Your brother wants to see you." Clotilde Travers was tall enough to look down her nose rightly at Ophelia Varinen. "I suggest you stop monopolising the bathroom. There's only so much magic can do to..." Her complaint stopped abruptly when she noticed the red script on the new girl's forearm.

"Do you have anything else you'd like to suggest?" Hermione asked sharply.

"No." The reply was fast. Her parents insisted on only two things from their daughter; that she comport herself modestly in public and that she not ask questions. There was a lot to not ask questions about in the Travers household. Clotilde recognised a curse wound when she saw one.

"Kindly tell my brother I will be out shortly." Hermione shut the door in the girl's face. Rude, yes. Satisfying, also yes. She needed to be more like Nott. He wasn't snapping at people and stamping around Hogwarts. A shaky breath then a sigh. Not really better but she couldn't spend the day barricaded in the bathroom.

She did something with her hair. The braids were getting more complex, which might be a sign of her competence with the charm or residue from over-use. Hermione looked at Ophelia in the mirror. Miss Varinen looked tense and in some indefinable way bitter.

There was no one in the dorm when she opened the door. Hermione got dressed in Ophelia's casual clothes as it was Saturday. A navy blue shirtdress and Mary Janes was an acceptable ensemble for a young pure-blood witch. Denim jeans were not.

When she walked out into the Common Room, she saw with wry amusement that several other girls were dressed like she was in varying neutral shades. The other 'acceptable' outfit was a turtle-neck and a tweed skirt. Delilah Greengrass bucked the trend in a green maxi dress. It was a convention of junior Stepford Wives.

"We've been called to the Headmaster's Office." Theo informed her, eschewing any attempt at casualness. "The four of us." He confirmed when Hermione glanced towards Rosier and Snape. "After breakfast."

"He's going to announce something." She suppressed a groan. Dumbledore liked surprises. Hermione was going right off them. "Let's get it over with."

"A surprising attitude." Mulciber swaggered to them and did not scruple not look her over like a piece of meat. "Considering he planted you here." His smirk pulled his lips open to bear his teeth. He was enjoying himself. "Or was it just an accident that you attacked one of the Dark Lord's own?"

"Are you on something, Mulciber?" Hermione demanded, her honest first impression. His eyes were very bright. She didn't know much about the drug scene in the wizarding world though on the Muggle side, the culture at this time was permissive. Her parents had given her very honest talks about what they had seen as trainees with access to pharmaceuticals.

"Crucio." Theo did not wait for Mulciber to reply. Most of the younger Slytherins were already at breakfast. He didn't like using Unforgivables in front of children. He tried not to get into the habit of using them at all but right now he needed to control the situation.

Mulciber collapsed to the floor, thrashing like a fish. He vomited a foamy white substance mixed with bile from his empty stomach. Theo stopped the curse when the older boy began to spew. Hermione stepped over the mess to roll the twitching Seventh Year into the first aid recovery position.

"For the record, Dumbledore didn't plant us here." Theo spoke to Mulciber, and the entire still, silent Common Room. "That is not an unreasonable supposition given your limited understanding of the realpolitik." He looked up, scanning the assembly. "His eyes are rolling back in his head. Does anyone know what he's taken?"

No one answered, except Hermione.

"Probably an amphetamine." She guessed. During the summer before she turned fifteen, her mum had taken her to an addictive substance seminar run by a doctor friend. Her parents had no clue about the magical world but they were realistic about teenagers everywhere. "He'll need to go to the hospital wing."

No one volunteered, except Hermione.

She levitated Mulciber, face down so he would not aspirate his vomit, and towed him towards the door. Theo followed her after meeting Avery's gaze. The Sixth Year made no move to assist his friend.

Madam Pomfrey was busy with Hogsmeade residents who needed medical attention but weren't priority patients for St Mungo's. When the twins arrived with their floating Housemate, she waved them to an empty bed then finished distributing pain potion.

"Muggle pharmaceutical overdose." Hermione explained, not looking at Theo. There would be words later about his use of the Cruciatus. "He started fitting and vomiting."

"I've seen several cases of this." The matron gently peeled back Mulciber's eyelids to check his pupils. "He's well away on whatever it is. I don't suppose you know what he took?"

"No one said." Theo provided.

"They never do." Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips in frustration. "I'll give him a general antidote and a calming draught and let him sleep it off. If it's the same thing that's doing the rounds in Hufflepuff, he should be fine in a day or so."

"Thank you, Madam Pomfrey." The courtesy was to assuage her guilty conscience. Hermione tried not to think of all the lies she had told, and would continue to tell, to people she esteemed.

"No trouble." The nurse briskly summoned a few bottles from the infirmary store to begin treating her newest patient. "Several people should be thanking you for all you did this morning. If you hadn't been in Hogsmeade, we would've lost a great many more."

"No trouble." Theo and Hermione echoed and hastily left. Madam Pomfrey's gratitude made them uncomfortably aware of how much they might have changed the future. One tiny snowflake could drift by unregarded or cause an avalanche.


	12. Beset

Hermione kept her peace through breakfast. She bit her tongue through Dumbledore's speech, half from outrage at the attack and half from mortification at the florid commendation she, Theo, Snape and Rosier garnered. They were made to stand and be applauded.

The Marauders were visibly lacking in enthusiasm, with which Hermione could empathise. This was a farce. Dumbledore was proving a point by showing everyone the 'good Slytherins' with the unspoken rider that even they had their estimable qualities.

She sat down heavily and stared at the table through the Headmaster's exhortations for hope and courage. She wished the sentiments buoyed her but they didn't. The sacrifices made in this war were in vain.

McGonagall escorted them from the Great Hall to the Headmaster's office, her own request to see the four superseded by Dumbledore's. They filed in, sat as directed and said nothing as they were introduced to a reporter from the Daily Prophet.

"No comment." Hermione spoke quickly. She stood. "What happened was a tragedy. We should focus on the lives lost and the security breach that allowed that loss. I don't see how publicity will assist in either case."

She left, not quite at a run, and was halfway down the hall before Theo caught up with her. Hermione slowed when he reached for her hand. The clasp was fleeting, he pulled back as soon as she stopped.

"I knew he'd turn it into propaganda." She fumed. It was a travesty. Disrespectful. "He'll spin it, stand on the moral high ground and not actually fucking do anything." Hermione snapped her mouth shut. Ranting in the corridor was foolish. Screaming blue murder as she badly wished to do was also daft.

"He does that?" Theo cast a Muffliato because Granger was angry enough to say something they would both regret.

"Oh yes." Hermione bitingly confirmed. "He'd talk and talk at Harry, stringing him along to get him to do what must be done for the greater good." Indignation on her friend's behalf made her vicious. "But he never sodding fixed anything."

"He's good at coaxing cooperation. My father warned me about him." This was one of those surreal conversations they had where they shared across a cultural gulf. Theo wondered why it had seemed so hard to do when they had been younger.

"I wish he'd warned me. I could've saved Harry years of being jerked around." She lamented. Hermione saw the twitch of Theo's smirk and mirrored it. "Yes, I do realise how unlikely it would be that your dad would take me aside to give advice."

"I wish we could tell him how insane Tom becomes." Theo took the risk in opening up to Granger but cut himself off before going too far. He waited for her reaction, ready to defend his desire to protect his family.

"He was one of Tom's school friends, wasn't he?" Hermione could almost feel Nott guarding himself from her response. "He'd be a fair way down the road to Hell. Little steps all the way." She met his eyes, a darker blue than Ron's, and shook her head. "No meddling."

"All very well for you to say. Your father doesn't end up with a life sentence in Azkaban." He should have bitten back those words. Theo knew that as soon as he saw the fury return to her face.

"My parents end up in St Mungo's relearning everything they ever knew. The Healers' are 'patiently hopeful' about their recovery." She spat. "When you visit your dad, at least he remembers you. Mine looks right through me."

"No one found them." Whatever had happened to Granger's mother and father had not been done at the wand of a Death Eater.

"But you looked. And your lot would've taken their time over killing my mum and dad. Or left them like Neville's parents as a reminder how I couldn't protect them." Hermione blinked rapidly, refusing to cry. She could be cold about this. She was, oh irony, a Slytherin. "Except I did."

"Transfiguration?" Theo asked, genuinely curious as to what Granger was prepared to do that would've taken such a toll on two Muggles.

"Obliviation." She hated the sound of the word. "I sent them to Australia with no memory of me. I brought them back over the summer, but the Charm had bonded well with their minds." Lockhart would've been so proud of her deft hand with Memory Charms.

"That was thorough." He was impressed. Granger had grasped the nettle and removed nearly all possibility of magically tracing her parents. Without a mental connection between parties, the only way to tract someone would be a blood rite and at that distance, Granger herself would have been needed as the focus. And if the Death Eaters had Granger, they wouldn't have bothered chasing down two Muggles half a world away.

"People I tell usually say 'cold-blooded' or that the Order would've protected my parents." Hermione eased back on her ire a little.

"If they'd stayed in Britain, they would have been found. No one could have protected them enough." Theo was sure. Granger was the incarnate proof of the flaws in their racial doctrine. "You were very unpopular among the Death Eaters."

"One does one's humble best." That cheered her.

"Are you going to come back to the Headmaster's Office? Tactically, I think you should." Running away from the reporter could be made to be seen to be pure-blood reticence. Staying away allowed others to write the narrative.

"He's a Legilimens. I'm not in a great state right now to keep him out of my head." She had to be realistic about her mental composure right now.

"Keep hold of my hand. Tandem concentration can sometimes help." Theo offered. When she took his hand, he didn't feel dirty but he did feel rueful that he thought he would feel besmirched.

"I didn't know that." Hermione gripped his fingers firmly, steadying herself.

"Daphne and I assisted each other keeping Madam Lestrange out of our heads whenever we had to visit Malfoy Manor." He explained to avoid being too aware he was walking hand in hand with a girl in public. "Daphne was terrified Rabastan Lestrange would offer for her if Bellatrix found out how frightened she was of them. He liked his women scared."

"I am so glad they didn't breed. Baby Lestrange probably would've come out with horns and a pointy tail." She'd wondered what was wrong, basically fundamentally irrevocably flawed in someone to be that sadistic. Hermione hoped it had been Azkaban, that Bellatrix had damned herself then suffered. Not that some poor child had been doomed from the beginning.

"They did, actually." Theo wasn't surprised she didn't know. It was NOT discussed. Ever. One of Greyback's pack had casually mentioned cubs in Madam Lestrange's hearing. She'd turned him into a rug. A wolf-skin rug. "Just before they were caught. I only know that much because my father was the godfather."

"What happened to the baby?" Hermione didn't ask about paternity. Bellatrix's slavish devotion to Voldemort raised questions. Was there another Heir of Slytherin running around in their time? When they found a way back, would they return to a third war?

"No idea. I found the godparent's oath scroll when I was tidying my father's private papers after the Aurors returned them. They'd been through everything." Theo grimaced. They'd even read the love letters his father had written his mother. "The scroll had the parentage, the usual vows and the baby's name. Nemesia Invicta Lestrange."

"Poor thing." Hermione aka Ophelia could commiserate. She paused by the Headmaster's door and tried to clutter her mind with surface thoughts as a decoy tactic. Theo opened the door for her and ushered her back inside.

The reporter was still there but he was packing up. Rosier and Snape were more than usually blank-faced. Dumbledore made conciliatory noises at her but Hermione concentrated on keeping her thoughts her own. Was there a mental touch? Subtle, ghosting through her head? She couldn't be sure.

"How are you enjoying Hogwarts so far, Miss Varinen?" The question from the reporter startled her. Hermione clutched Theo's hand as their previous conversation popped into her head. She squashed it down hurriedly.

"The standard of teaching is good." She replied, picking bland words so she didn't stumble over them while she thought dull thoughts. "We look forward to our education here."

That sounded a little off so Hermione stopped talking and focussed on her right hand, the one not being held. Her wand hand. She wondered how many wands she had used in her life and tried to visualise them as her mind prickled again.

The reporter left. Once he was gone, McGonagall and Dumbledore did a credible bad cop, good cop performance. The four Slytherins had endangered themselves by following the vision and while their intentions were commendable, they should leave the conflict to the adults.

That dismissive, patronising suggestion from the Headmaster made Hermione's blood boil. Her mind filled with vitriol and she had no difficulty severing that subtle mental intrusion. The bastard! Hypocritical son of a bitch! How fucking dare he say that to them!

"Of course, Headmaster." Theo felt Granger's hand go icy. He said the appropriate things and got them out of there before his 'sister' did something gruesome. Leave it to the adults, in bloody deed. He needed a drink.

Rosier was obviously of the same mind. When the four returned to the Slytherin Common Room, Rosier broached the Seventh Years' liquor stash and poured them all a tot. He sipped his, one did not knock back twenty year old barrel aged Firewhiskey, and grimaced.

"Sanctimonious arse." Rosier muttered.

"You have no idea." Hermione trembled with tightly held outrage. She took a small taste of the alcohol then shook her head.

"It's not plonk." Theo had drunk better from the Nott cellars but for borrowed shot it was fine.

"Wilkes will be delighted by your critique on his drink." The smirk was pro forma. Rosier looked pensive. "I don't think I care for being a hero. I felt like a crup primped for walkies."

"Nevertheless, we escaped without censure." Considering McGonagall's usual acerbic tongue when dealing with his House, Theo considered the finger-wagging scold they'd received to be almost an endearment.

"You've dealt with them before." Snape commented, as though it was an idle observation fuelled by Firewhiskey.

"People like them." Hermione agreed, sounding vague but far from it.

"We know their sort." Theo added. Ah, Slytherin sideways conversation, how he had missed it.

"You're a double-act." The half-blood's sneer could have been an attempt at dry humour. From the way Rosier's eyes flickered over his companions, none of the four believed that.

"We're twins." Her flippant remark sounded so much like Fred and George to Hermione that she frowned. "I need to report to Slughorn for detention."

"I need to write to my father." Rosier finished his drink. He looked at the depleted bottle and gritted his teeth. He would not follow Mulciber's example by blotting himself out. The older boy had been celebrating. In his case, he'd rather like to avoid paternal wrath.

"Blame us." Theo had not often had to write to his father, officially, but Draco had. You didn't need a Howler to express displeasure. Lucius Malfoy's replies had been cutting. "I expect Avery has already whined to his parents."

"Ferret." Hermione remarked and Theo smirked.

"Quite." The observation was quite apt. They weren't under Polyjuice but they could easily be in the same role as the faux Moody.

"Care to explain?" Snape inquired, his dark eyes sharp.

"Care to explain why you and Evans never look at each other?" Theo went on the attack to fend off his former Head of House's interest. "We noticed in Defence against the Dark Arts and Potions how you both can't see each other."

"Arithmancy too." While she didn't like tormenting Snape, he was being persistent and observant. Hermione regarded him critically. "You didn't like it when we didn't speak to her in class."

"Snape's got some history with the red haired Mudblood." Rosier happily threw his Housemate to the Erinyes to see what the Varinens would do to him. He wasn't afraid of the half-blood's reprisal. Snape couldn't do much in defence of a girl who pretended he didn't exist.

"That is a private matter." His tone was so perfectly that of their future Potion Master the 'twins' shared a smile. The connection with their future was reassuring.

"Likewise." Hermione said perfunctorily. "Let's all keep our peccadilloes to ourselves."

That put a crimp in further conversation. Rosier and Snape excused themselves with acceptable courtesy, leaving Theo and Hermione to stare dejectedly out the window trying not to brood. When the silence got too much, they cast a Muffliato.

"Do you remember any raid on Hogsmeade?" Theo had been dwelling on the anomaly once out of range of Dumbledore's mental surveillance. He couldn't be sure and that niggled at him.

"There were lots of attacks. Tom had an ethusiastic reign of terror." Hermione bit her lip. She'd been caught up in the situation, reacting as she would have in their own war. "Not specifically, no." She rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty. "Have we fucked up?"

"I don't know." He rubbed his left arm. The Dark Mark had burned last night, inciting him to do something. "There could've been an attack that was hushed up. The Ministry was besieged. They lied whenever they could to keep the peace."

"Denying terrorists the oxygen of publicity." Sometimes it worked, but she didn't like the smothering of journalistic freedom. Though the concept didn't really exist in the wizarding world. In her experience, the magical reporters either wrote to patronage or spouted drivel.

"Is that a quote?" Theo hadn't heard it before and liked it.

"Margaret Thatcher. She was the British Prime Minister in the Eighties." Hermione provided. Her parents hadn't thought well of Thatcher but they'd liked the fact she had a Science degree. "Not sure when she gave that speech, though, so best not quote it for Muggle Studies."

"Pity." Their homework beckoned, as did the continued search of the library for anything on time travel. "I'll walk you to Slughorn's office. I expect he'll be feeling quite lenient."

Lenient did not begin to cover the lackadaisical detention Slughorn gave her. He was so pleased with the kudos his House had received that he assigned her an extra essay on a topic of her choosing, to be submitted when it was done. Though he did caution her to say she was helping him with his research should anyone ask.

Neither Theo nor Hermione commented on this blatant favouritism. And Hermione would turn in an essay. A comprehensive essay on the use of mandrake leaves, which would excuse their access of the Potions store for the materials they needed to become Animagi.

They were both a little less gloomy as they made their way to the library and to their secluded table beyond Ancient Runes. Regrettably that spark of optimism was extinguished by the presence of four Gryffindors waiting for them.

Sirius sat on the table, legs swinging insolently. James lounged with his arms crossed. Peter stood defensively. Remus was pacing. So close to the full moon, he was agitated and actually jumped when Theo spoke.

"Good morning." He could have started with an insult but he considered it best to let the Lions begin the slanging match.

"How did you know there'd be an attack?" James demanded, uncrossing his arms to loom aggressively. He wasn't going to let them slither out of this. Neither Varinen seemed intimidated.

"I had a vision." Hermione replied coolly, guessing Ophelia would pretend the question had been civil.

"That's shite." Sirius scoffed. "You must've been told."

"And you'll tell us who let you know." James pulled out his wand, gripping it tightly. "You set it up so you'd look good. Like you weren't in on it with Snape and Rosier."

The Gryffindors took their cue from their friend and drew their wands too. They waited for the Slytherins to respond, wanting answers and justice for the Death Eaters' victims. They had to do something to help fight the war.

"The full moon is on Tuesday." Hermione did not want to get into a spell battle with Harry's dad. She and Theo had a hold over the Marauders. It was blackmail and she disliked it intensely but if it made them keep their distance, she'd extort them.

"So?" Sirius shrugged while his friends broke out in poker faces. "There's a full moon every month."

"Oh, why be subtle, sister?" Theo had rather liked Professor Lupin. He'd been biased but had taught well. However, the look in Potter's eyes before he'd carefully blanked them had been implacable. Potter was certain they were aligned with Voldemort. He wouldn't negotiate unless threatened. "They're Gryffindors. We need to use small words. Like werewolf."


	13. Badinage

Lupin flinched at the word. His friends looked furious but they lowered their wands.

"Another thing you seem very well informed about." James said through his teeth. Every instinct he had told him the twins were Death Eaters. There was something about them that rubbed him entirely the wrong way.

"We notice things." Hermione continued using Ophelia's cool, controlled voice. She had wanted to apologise to Remus when he had shied at Theo's revelation. She couldn't. Or rather Ophelia wouldn't. "We listen. And we know when someone is listening in on us, Pettigrew."

"You have a lot of sneaky chats for people with nothing to hide." Peter accused, wanting to back up James. He owed these smug gits for leaving him on a shelf like some stuffed toy. It'd taken his friends ages to remove the body-bind so he could change back.

"We value our privacy." Theo watched Sirius out of the corner of his eye. The Black family were volatile. It took nothing to set them off. He'd try something, Theo was certain.

"You Slytherins are always up to no good." James edged a little towards Remus. If this went pear-shaped, he'd send his friend for help. Get him well away from the trouble so he could say he'd had nothing to do with it. Particularly if the Varinens informed on him.

"As opposed to your laudable conduct." Hermione smirked, reassured that the Gryffindors thus far had nothing on them other than suspicion. She didn't let herself relax, though. Sirius was being too quiet. "So shall we call this discussion concluded? We mind our business, and you mind yours."

Ophelia Varinen stepped forward, right hand extended to seal the agreement. James swapped his wand from right to left to begrudgingly shake her hand. As soon as they clasped, with the Slytherin girl apparently unarmed, Sirius struck.

"Obliviate!" He lashed out at Orpheus, wanting to get him before his sister had time to react. Then he'd make Ophelia forget too and Remus would be safe. It was a good plan.

Unfortunately for Sirius neither Theo nor Hermione went anywhere without a Shield spell. The charm bounced off Theo's defences, which was all the invitation either war-trained time-traveller needed.

Theo hit Black with a non-verbal Stunner then shot another at Pettigrew. That charm missed as the Animagus was already shrinking into rat form and scuttling away.

Hermione jerked her left wrist, causing her wand to slid out of her sleeve into her hand. She'd learned the trick from Harry and she used his signature spell to disarm his father. Her best friend would probably find that hilarious.

"Expelliarmus!" Hermione did not muck about. Her spell hit James point blank, sending him backwards over the table and his wand flying. She spun on her heel, dropping into a crouch so when Remus tried to retaliate his spell went over her head. "Stupefy!"

The thud of her former teacher hitting the bookcase behind him made her grimace in sympathy. She hadn't meant to put quite so much power into it but after years of fighting, her Stunning Charm was strong.

"Ratty has scarpered." Theo took a quick stride towards her, turning so they could stand back to back. He Stunned Potter before he could get up, somewhat unnecessarily as Hermione had left him sprawled and woozy.

The witch straightened and began methodically casting the Homorphus Charm. A loud crash and an obscenity indicated Pettigrew had been circling around behind one of the display cases. When her spell forced him back into his human form, he'd smacked his head on the underside of the cabinet before knocking it over.

"Stupefy." Theo didn't cast non-verbally this time as he had more control with a voiced spell. He wanted to knock out the rat Animagus but not deeply in case Pettigrew had hurt himself. Head trauma and stunning charms did not mix well.

"We seem to be failing the going unnoticed part of our plan." Hermione surveyed the havoc they had wrought and wanted to kick something. Herself, possibly.

"On the other hand, we're racking up quite a headcount." He collected the wands as she picked up the scattered rune stones and mended their display case.

"These are nice." Holding up one of the carved stones to the light, Hermione admired the delicacy of the incised lines. "The maker took a lot of trouble to keep the forms in proportion." She stepped over Pettigrew, collecting more of the set. "I'm missing ger and stan, do you see them?"

"Here, under the table." Theo knelt, retrieved the rounded river stones and handed them over. Hermione replaced them in the cabinet then shut the glass lid.

"If we could only tidy this lot away as neatly. I really don't want a repeat of this incident." She frowned at James Potter, all too aware where Harry got his stubbornness. "Do we pretend this never happened?"

"I think we should take ourselves to our Head of House and in a fit of self-righteousness complain. Four against two. We'll surrender their wands to Slughorn." Theo would have preferred discretion but the Marauders had refused to take blackmail peaceably.

The 'twins' went back to the dungeons and waited outside Slughorn's office for a moment of his time. For no sensible reason, Hermione found their situation humorous. She smiled at Theo as she leant against the wall with a fistful of wands.

"I promised myself a quiet year. I was looking forward to dull." She chuckled softly, going with her mood swing. Hermione would rather be giddy than morose.

"Me too." Theo mirrored her smile, noticing awkwardly the way her mouth curled. He imagined her with crimson lips and had to look away. Not appropriate, the pure-blood told himself sternly. She wasn't his sister but he was damn well going to act like she was. "Didn't last long." He said to the wall. "Might even be a record."

"I expect so." Hermione sighed, covertly looking him over. Had there been a little spark? She'd become more adept at picking up romantic cues since she and Ron had, well, started standing awkwardly next to each other waiting for the other person to start something.

She missed Ron. She missed Harry. Would they even remember her when she got back? Hermione held onto her upbeat mood resolutely. They would remember her. They were the Golden Trio. Nothing could undo that. Except clumsy courting. At least Ginny knew what she was doing and could take the lead with Harry. She and Ron weren't quite sure what to do with each other.

"My young heroes!" Slughorn greeted them effusively after he'd opened his door for the next petitioner for his counsel. "Back so soon?" There was a shadow question behind that query. The Professor was sensitive to obligation and it made him edgy. The twins didn't want a favour, which was good, but their expressions suggested all manner of things he did not want to know.

"May we give these into your custody, sir?" Hermione held up the Marauders' wands. Slughorn's eyebrows rose but he didn't exclaim, not in the hallway where anyone might hear. He ushered them into his small office and took the wands.

"Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew." Theo stated, taking a chair and tea when it was offered. The urbane wizard looked at him expectantly. "They ambushed us in the library and accused us of being Death Eaters."

"Which we find extremely offensive." Hermione emphasised, recalling Slughorn's guilt over his indulgence of Tom Riddle. Giving the Professor a firm moral line would reassure him he could endorse them.

"But as we are new arrivals, we don't know how best to resolve the conflict. Please advise us." Smooth as cream, with just a hint of butter for the old man's ego. Theo preferred his own company because conversations like this left him feeling rancid.

"Of course, dear boy." Slughorn beamed at him, tucking the wands away in his desk. "Leave it to me. I'll have a quiet word with Minerva and we'll soon have her cubs behaving themselves." He assured, then risked his peace of mind by asking a question. "Ambushed you, you said?"

"We left them Stunned. There was some damage to a cabinet but we repaired it. They should rouse fairly soon with a little bruising." Hermione thought Ophelia sounded very self-satisfied in an understated aristocratic way. Arrogant cow.

"May I ask where the two of you learned to duel?" The inquiry was out before he could stop it and from the frown that flickered across his face, Slughorn regretted his curiosity.

"Private tutors." Theo answered with technical honesty.

"Of course. A very thorough education." The older wizard visibly put the matter out of his mind and sipped his tea as though he wished it were brandy.

"A certain amount of luck." Hermione felt sorry for him. He was troubled, deeply, about his own House and the future. She wished she could tell him it all worked out in the end. But she couldn't, because she wasn't sure herself if it would now. "Black started it and the others improvised."

"Whereas my sister and I are accustomed to working as a team." Theo asserted, folding his hands together rather than reaching for one of hers. They did make a good pair though.

Slughorn seemed to like their version of reality and made small talk, doing a flawless impersonation of a personable man with nothing troubling him. They finished their tea and took their leave.

"He's worried." Theo remarked, under Muffliato in the Slytherin Common room. They weren't hiding per se just lying low until their Head of House had a chance to speak with Professor McGonagall.

"He should be. He knows about the horcuxes, and says nothing." When they got back to their own time, Hermione was going to take out a full page ad in the Prophet to tell everyone what they'd done. There were too many secrets.

"Snakes hide well. If I could've found a hole deep enough, I would've buried myself." He admitted frankly, to a woman who had neither run nor hid. "Didn't have that option."

"Would you have defected, if given the opportunity?" She asked, mildly. The tone didn't suit her but he appreciated her effort at not being confrontational.

"No." Theo was blunt because he was certain. "I didn't even let myself think about it. Not with Tom hovering ever present in our thoughts. Avoiding Madam Lestrange's wrath was a marvellous incentive to loyalty." He met her steady brown eyes, seeing her doubts. "I'd never betray my father."

"I never thought about leaving. More innate stubbornness than courage, probably. Being the untermensch didn't give me many choices either." Hermione ran her fingernails along her left forearm, caught herself then picked up a book to keep her hands occupied.

"Is it healing?" He had to ask. He didn't have to think about the rush, the intensity of trust and power that was bound up in the memory of altering the word on her arm.

"Slowly. If I don't touch it, I can almost forget about it." Except when she wanted to scratch it down to the bone. "How's yours?"

"Live." Theo said grimly. "If he knew, he could call me. Maybe not clearly, the runes would be misaligned, but I would certainly feel it."

"Isn't magic wonderful?" Hermione grinned her best manic grin. "I'd appreciate it a bit more if we had any lead on returning home. We need to find an account of a temporal disturbance. We may be able to reverse engineer a conduit."

Theo's reply was interrupted by the arrival of Regulus Black. The boy didn't intrude, he stopped near them and stood patiently waiting for them to notice his presence. Hermione dismissed the Muffliato then her 'twin' gave the younger Slytherin a nod.

"I would like to inquire if you are responsible for my brother's trip to the Hospital Wing." Regulus spoke politely but not formally, cluing Theo to his ambivalence.

"I am surprised he was given into Madam Pomfrey's care from one Stupefying Charm." Orpheus Varinen reciprocated the courtesy and gestured to an armchair close by. The boy sat, conveying to them he was not here to settle a point of honour.

"For observation, I understand. He couldn't say with what he had been struck." Regulus looked from Orpheus to Ophelia, who was again regarding him amiably. He settled back in the chair, relieved the siblings did not seem irate over the incident. "I would like to offer my apologies."

Hermione nearly asked 'what for?' but Theo's idle dismissive wave stilled her. Something pure-blood was going on. She folded her hands on her book and observed the interaction.

"No need. Do please assure your mother that we in no way hold her responsible for the antics of any Gryffindor." He deliberately did not name a specific person as Sirius Black was still the eldest son and acknowledged heir. "We hope Madam Black similarly bears us no ill will for a regrettable event."

"He won't stop getting into trouble." Regulus was now a frustrated teenager instead of the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. "He does it deliberately to upset our parents, like it's some sort of game."

"You have our commiserations." Theo, a lonely only child, had often wished for a sibling. But not one like Sirius Black. "If it is any consolation, we gave his wand to Professor Slughorn. Your brother will be relatively harmless for at least the weekend."

"His temper might cool off by then." He frowned, not terribly optimistic about his brother's self-control. Regulus was bitterly aware Sirius traduced their own family as often as he could. "Why did his gang target you?"

"They think we're conspiring with the Dark Lord." Theo spoke quietly, giving the impression he was including Regulus in a confidence. Hermione glared but kept her mouth tightly shut. She wasn't going to bawl him out for calling Tom by his title in front of an eventual Death Eater.

"Oh." Regulus looked very young for a moment then resumed his Slytherin mask. "That would certainly account for it. My brother is a blood-traitor. Potter too. It's disgusting."

"It's inevitable given their House." Hermione spoke, wanting to reclaim her share of the conversation before Theo got too chummy with Regulus. "Try not to let it prey on your mind."

"That's kind of you to say." The younger boy gave her a tentative smile, which she returned wanting to show him Ophelia didn't blame him for have a difficult brother. Then Orpheus smiled and Hermione wondered what Theo found so amusing. "If you'll excuse me, I will write to Mother. I expect she is very concerned."

After Regulus had gone, Theo was still smiling that genteel half-smirk. Hermione cast a Muffliato fully intending on giving him a piece of her mind over the 'Dark Lord' bit. However homesick he might be, bonding with the locals wasn't sensible. Theo got the first word in.

"He likes you." The wizard observed.

"That's nice. He seemed quite friendly to you too, which is a problem." Hermione began and then stopped when her 'twin' chuckled.

"I mean he's interested in you." Theo clarified, his eyes on her mouth. That little quirk she did when she was flattered didn't happen. She didn't esteem Black's interest.

"Well, he's going to be disappointed. We can't get attached. If we get too close, we'll be tempted. It's bad enough already." She heard her voice rise with a shrill note and calmed down. "I feel sorry for Regulus. He gets sacrificed on the altar of family honour then tries his best to stop Tom."

"Garlands for a fallen hero?" He asked, a little more mockingly than he'd intended. Theo back-pedalled. "I apologise. That was in poor taste."

"Yes, it was." Hermione confirmed briskly. "But I take your point. I won't let my sympathy for him show. I'll be a cold, snooty bitch and walk around like I smell something bad. I saw that expression perpetually on Narcissa Malfoy's face, I should be able to mimic it."

"A reserved expression in public prevents social entanglements." Theo repeated the axiom he had learned from every adult in his father's milieu.

"If you don't look friendly, the riff-raff won't try to chat." She translated with a smirk. "Honestly, do you think that way? No wonder you Slytherins look so bloody miserable all the time."

"We Slytherins, sister." He corrected with a glance at her green tie. "Have to navigate a complex network of obligation, allegiance, feud and history. We are the scions of our Houses, everything we do reflects on our families."

"And look where that got you!" Hermione wanted to shake him. "A despised minority guilty of war crimes. Society is a living organism. It needs air and it changes as it grows. Trying to cripple it by keeping it the same shape as it was a hundred, two hundred years ago is pyrrhic."

"I know!" Theo yelled then moderated his response. "I know." He adjusted his signet ring, still transfigured into the crest of the Varinens. "But leaving one world for another is wrenching."

"Tell me about it." Said Hermione, Muggle-born witch.


	14. Bedlam

Loitering in the Slytherin Common Room was productive, Hermione had to admit. The atmosphere was quiet almost solemn and there were no pranks, snogging couples or exuberant games. The younger students made themselves scarce and the older students largely kept themselves to themselves.

The girls from her dorm caused the only crease in the smoothness of her Saturday. Just before lunch, Yaxley, Travers and Kneen walked into the Common Room, saw her and immediately had a three-way mute conversation of looks and nods. Theo noticed too and looked inquiringly at her. Hermione shrugged. Her Gryffindor dorm-mates had often done the same thing. It usually ended in giggles.

Berengaria Yaxley tossed her hair and headed towards the twins. It was lovely hair with just the right amount of wave, Hermione thought enviously. Yaxley's hair probably didn't assassinate incautious combs like hers did.

"Orpheus, Ophelia." The Sixth Year girl addressed them by name, which caused Theo to raise an eyebrow. He had learned from Professor Snape and was pleased by the effect. "Very well, Varinen then, if you want to be a stickler."

"Miss Yaxley." Theo greeted her. Hermione echoed him, sensing this was going to be a Slytherin conversation. Their formality prompted Berengaria to raise her chin. She was evidently not doing this for her own entertainment.

"My mother has given me permission to invite some of my peers to our family's Samhain ball. Would you and your sister be inclined to attend?" She asked conventionally, her mulish pout reminded Hermione strongly of Lavender Brown.

"You and your mother are very kind, but Ophelia and I must sadly decline." He gave the form reply, offering no excuses. Yaxley made an attempt at looking disappointed then quickly rejoined Kneen and Travers. The girls departed to their dorm, leaving both Varinens frowning.

"Let's go to lunch." Hermione suggested. They collected their books and sauntered out of the Common Room, diverting to a classroom as was their usual habit. Two Muffliato Charms and a shared grimace.

"New standing policy, refuse all invitations." Theo stated, wishing he could believe Yaxley had suddenly taken a liking to them and wanted their company as friends. "We make no social engagements, not even amiable strolls around the grounds."

"What about in-house events? Students do pair off for the Feasts." She had never except for the Triwizard social events as she'd always gone with Ron and Harry. Except when Won-Won had gone with Lav-Lav. "How much of a hermit do we need to be to avoid Death Eater soirees?"

"I had expected this to be easier. Ravenclaws have a reputation for being reclusive." He rued their Sorting into his old House. "We stick together. No mysterious notes or messages purportedly from one of us but delivered by someone else."

"We'll use Patronus communication if we're separated." Hermione agreed, defaulting to the Order of the Phoenix strategy.

"I can't cast a Patronus. No Death Eater can." Theo reminded her.

"Snape could. His was the same as Lily Evans's." She eyed him. No Patronus was a problem. No other communication method was as secure. "Is it a lack of a strong, positive memory or some innate corruption? Have you used much Dark Magic?"

"I expect the latter. I had trouble maintaining the Vulnera Sanentur casting." He didn't like admitting incompetence but he'd had to struggle to keep the spell from fizzling.

"Did you enjoy it?" Hermione asked.

"Really, Ophelia, now? You're preaching now?" Theo meant to call her by her surname but the recollection charm thwarted his intention to put distance between them.

"I'm not preaching. I'm being practical. I've used Dark Magic. Most of the Order have. There are a lot of grey areas and quite often the designation is purely bureaucratic." Her tone was crisp, pedagogical. Not huffy at all. "The difference as far as I can tell is the enthusiasm with which the negative spells are used."

"You really can't help yourself." He fought to hide a smile, astounded that Potter or Weasley hadn't claimed her solely so they could listen to her talk. Either idiot Gryffindor could ride to a Mastership with Hermione as a study aide.

"No, I can't. I love magic. I want to know everything about it. Including the assumptions and the bad habits." Hermione replied, surprised she wasn't defensive. The usual eye-rolling at her scholarly enthusiasm hadn't happened. At her explanation, Theo had retreated from his frustration immediately.

"I used Snape's spells. He mentored the younger recruits, the moderate ones, when he could." Surreptitiously keeping them away from the fanatics. "I used the Cruciatus. Frequently. I can't say I enjoyed it."

"There will be some residual contamination. The Unforgivables taint both victim and user." She was reassured she could discuss this in a clinical manner. "Have you done any purification rituals?"

"I shut myself away at Nott Manor and tried to clean up the mess." Theo recognised that was not the most therapeutic thing he could have done. "I was hoping returning to Hogwarts would give me some purgation."

"Well, then we can do that." Hermione was good at tackling problems. It was the standing around waiting that clawed at her. "Sensible to do so before beginning Animagus meditation. I was going to suggest a cleansing rite anyway."

"The Alchemy laboratory should be available today. We can make a simple sandalwood incense and use the Room of Requirement." He suggested then paused. Hermione's gaze found his and they stared at each other.

"Could it be that easy?" She asked rhetorically, telling herself not to be too urgent, not to hope too much.

The 'twins' climbed to the seventh floor at a painfully casual mosey. The tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy's ballet lesson was there with a blank wall opposite. Hermione took a deep breath.

"We need a room to be a conduit between past and future, our future. Let no one but us enter. We want to go home." She spoke to the wall.

A door appeared. With her wand, Hermione drew a rune on the floor. It wouldn't last long even if it wasn't scuffed by someone walking past, but it would give them an indication of any time passed.

Theo held the door open for her then followed her hurriedly inside, shutting the portal firmly. The Room of Requirement had made itself into a time capsule. A gramophone stood atop a plastic folding table. Posters of brightly coloured advertisements covered the walls in between portraits of wizarding folk in antiquated garb.

"A space hopper?" Hermione nudged a large orange ball out of the way to survey the collection of Interior Design Mistakes Through the Ages. "Did it pull this stuff from the Room of Hidden Things?"

"I can confidently say no wizard ever owned that." Theo indicated a lime green inflatable couch. "How long do we need to wait?" He eyed a wall of shiny, blank mirrors he suspected were Muggle gadgets of some sort. "I do not like it in here."

"Not long, and neither do I. There's something off." Hermione wondered if she needed to phrase her request more precisely. Perhaps a simple 'return us to 1998' would be adequate. She would specify September as stepping out of the Room in the middle of May and the Battle of Hogwarts would not be an improvement.

"Draco had a poor opinion of this room and the Room of Hidden Things. Too much old magic." He reached out for her and they held hands, waiting tensely for another minute for the magic of the room to stabilise before exiting.

Her rune was still there, pale and undisturbed. Hermione dispelled it with a muttered curse. They went to lunch to check they were still where they had been before entering the room. Being a uniform optional day, the clothing choices of their peers confirmed it.

"Bugger." The Muggle-born witch paused in the doorway of the Great Hall. Theo had let go of her hand sometime during their walk. She found she missed the reassuring contact.

"Quite. Let's lunch then go to the Alchemy laboratory. We can try the Room again after some research." By the time they got back, they would be experts on temporal theory or at least all the different ways time magic did not work.

As they walked to the Slytherin table, the 'twins' became aware of the attention they were drawing. The Daily Prophet had gone to the presses before full reports of the attack on Hogsmeade so their reporting had been brief. Witch Weekly had plenty of time to purple their prose.

Rosier handed Theo the paper after the Varinens took their seats. Hogsmeade was on the front page. Someone had taken photographs of the aftermath of the village. It looked worse in monochrome. And a reporter had bamboozled their way into St Mungo's.

"Valiant Varinens." Rosier quoted from the florid article on the survivors. He raised his glass of pumpkin juice. "All I got was 'commendable'. Snape was 'stalwart'. The author must not have found a suitable alliteration for my surname."

"Quelle surprise." Theo showed Rita Skeeter's name on the byline to Hermione, who rolled her eyes and cut her roast beef into tiny pieces. "I must say I enjoy the prose of the British press. So vibrant."

"That rag's pure drivel." Clotilde Travers opined from further up the table. "Good enough for half-bloods trying to ape their betters."

Severus Snape lowered the book he was reading to give both the Witch Weekly and the witch derided it a contemptuous look. He didn't turn his gaze to the Varinens. When he spoke, it seemed to be to the table at large.

"Panem et circenses." Or he could be referring to the two Gryffindors who had just entered the Great Hall. Lily Evans stormed ahead of James Potter, who was persisting in his attempts to court her.

"Continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat." Partly to get some use out of her compulsory Latin, partly because she loved his Satires, Hermione's mother had read Juvenal to her daughter as a child. She knew the reference Snape had cited and gave the context; 'everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things'.

Theo's Latin was passable, more than sufficient for spell-casting. He followed what Hermione and Snape were saying though not the meaning behind it. Until he saw the well-concealed but raw longing in the eventual Potion Professor's eyes when he looked at Evans.

"Der wahre Mensch will zwei Dinge: Gefahr und Spiel. Aus diesem Grund will er eine Frau, als das gefährlichste Spielzeug." Theo had a weakness for Nietzsche, whom he strongly suspected to be a Squib. "The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything."

"She is not a toy." Snape almost snarled, snapping his book shut.

"Not ours, certainly." Hermione agreed, watching with disfavour as James Potter refused to take 'bugger off' for an answer. She knew he improved with age, that most of his obnoxious qualities were because he'd been spoiled as a child. But seeing his harassment now riled her.

"Ravenclaw table is over there." Avery sniped, jerking his head towards the blue and bronze. "If you want to spout gibberish, you know where to go."

"Mulciber is still in the hospital wing." Theo remarked pleasantly. "And my sister has already chastised you on your manners."

"He did that to himself." Roderick Avery was aware of his ally's fall from grace and was determined to re-establish his position in their House. Snape and Rosier's apparently chumminess with the blow-ins further isolated him.

"Yes, he did. So careless." Hermione observed lightly, attempting to suggest they had been somehow responsible for Mulciber's overdose. It was a whim but she hoped the unspoken threat would prompt Avery to keep his distance.

The conversation withered around them as their fellow Slytherins found either their food or their books suddenly fascinating. Urquart, whose aptitude for avoiding trouble was well-honed, stuffed the last of his mashed potatoes into his mouth and left the table. His going started an exodus, leaving only Regulus Black, Avery, Rosier, Snape, and the Varinens of the Fifth and Sixth years, with the empty places glaringly book-ended by the Fourth and Seventh Years.

The other Houses noticed the sudden thinning of the ranks at the green table. The Ravenclaws noted it and spoke quietly amongst themselves. The Hufflepuffs goggled a bit then returned to their lunch. But the Gryffindors had to comment.

"Someone call a Junior Death Eater meeting?" One wag from the red table yelled, to general laughter.

"Your Idiot Convention seems well attended." Someone from the Hufflepuff table shouted back. He stood and marched over to the Slytherins, sitting down before his nerve failed him. "Pye." He introduced himself. "Please don't laugh. I've heard all the jokes."

"You're in our Muggle Studies class." Theo recalled the stocky boy as one of the few actually taking notes. Pye nodded as the Gryffindors continued to laugh amongst themselves. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs didn't join in however.

"Madam Scrivenshaft is my auntie. I saw her in hospital." He explained, shoulders squared. Pye was clearly not comfortable at their table but he stuck to his principles. "I wanted to thank you for saving her."

A memory clicked into place for Hermione. She'd met Healer Pye, and Healer Smethwyck, in St Mungo's after Arthur Weasley had been bitten by Nagini.

"It was the Healers who saved her." Hermione felt she had to nudge him towards a medical profession. She had no idea if he was that way inclined already but it was important he be there for Arthur. "We are relieved she is well."

"She said you wouldn't leave her." Pye had been impressed by that. He didn't know himself if he would've run. He wanted to think that he wouldn't. He wanted to help. "So no one has any right to call you that name." He didn't offer his hand as he didn't want to put Varinen on the spot or have him refuse it. "I just wanted to show that, I guess."

Pye went back to the Hufflepuff table with the air of having done his duty. Hermione smiled, shifting on the bench so she could look past Avery to the Gryffindor table. They were still talking but no one was paying attention to them. Ostentatiously so.

"Did you choose the merchant because she has a large family?" Snape inquired, his tone so similar to his teaching voice that Hermione expected him to end with 'Mister Potter'.

"Happy coincidence." Theo said airily as he had no idea what the other boy meant. Evidently he suspected them of orchestrating the attack, which was odd given he was almost certainly already in contact with the Death Eaters. Or did he think the village excursion had been set up to make them look good?

"We have work to do." Hermione told her 'brother', shouldering her book bag. Whatever Snape was suggesting, she didn't like it and didn't want to give him a chance to discuss it with them. "If you will excuse us, gentlemen."

The Varinens left at a sedate pace and by mutual agreement headed up to the Alchemy laboratory. The door wasn't locked but the room was empty. Argo Pyrites had left a stack of worksheets for the class to do at their leisure. The familiar Muffliato duo let them relax a little.

"Snape's made up his mind about something." Theo spoke urgently, the walk having given him time to stew about their luncheon conversation.

"I noticed that too. Do you think he knows what we are?" How he could have figured that out, Hermione had no clue. They'd been so careful. "He didn't like your German quote. Overtones of Nietzschean superman, don't you think?"

"It was Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche." He was pleased she recognised the author, though her expression suggested she didn't find his work intriguing. "I doubt Snape was upset about my choice of philosophers. I think he thinks we're spies."

"He agrees with Mulciber?" She didn't consider that likely. Whatever else he was, Snape was fastidious. Jumping to the conclusion they were informants seemed sloppy thinking to her.

"Not Dumbledore." Theo wasn't sure himself. "Not Tom. Someone else. I don't know much about European politics of this era. There's the remnants of Grindelwald's movement and old pure-blood factions but I'm not sure."

"Grindelwald?" For no sensible reason, Hermione started to laugh uproariously.


	15. Barbican

"Do you need a Calming Draught?" Theo asked slowly as Hermione continued to snicker.

"I'm fine." She gulped a breath. "The idea we are in league with Grindelwald is so incongruous I can't help but laugh." The witch shook her head. "I've always equated his followers with skinheads. A pack of hyper-aggressive, misogynist, ill-educated nutjobs."

"When you put it that way." He smirked, observing her as she collected herself. It was an odd thing to admire but he did. Hermione always got back up when thrown. She was resolute. Theo envied that intensely. His life was one of painful compromises.

"I don't think it's implausible. Snape isn't stupid. The Varinens could be spies from an foreign interest group." Hermione sighed. "He'll keep his distance now at least. Will he share his conclusions with the others?"

"I doubt it. He was never chatty, even with his contemporaries." Theo opened his Alchemy textbook and started preparing ingredients for the purification rite. They'd smell like balsam for several hours but the fragrant oils weren't as overpowering as their fumes classwork.

"Is that what you and I are?" She asked, wondering if their comradeship would evaporate once they returned to their own time.

"I hope we can be friends. I'm not good at making friends." Theo was candid even though doing so slid crossways over his metaphorical scales.

"Neither am I. Ron could chat to anybody and be chums with them in ten minutes." Hermione huffed. Such easy affability was not in her nature.

"Do you miss him?"

"Of course. And Harry. But I was going to be away from them this year regardless. They're not great letter writers and Auror training eats time." She hadn't expected to hear much from her friends while she was at Hogwarts.

The conversation lapsed as Theo did not ask the question he most wanted. He could convince himself that a Gryffindor would respond best to frankness and that if this was to be anything, if he wanted her... He turned his attention to purifying incenses.

Hermione was grateful for the silence. It was presumptuous for her to assume his question about Ron was in any way specifically romantic. Or the sort of pre-romance general inquiry you should always ask. They were in a stressful, intense forced togetherness. And she had mentioned Ron first.

The witch told herself to put it out of her mind and concentrate on work. Doing so was a relief. Having something to occupy herself that wasn't focussed on their predicament was soothing.

They remained in a state of calm companionship for the rest of Saturday. Theo and Hermione successfully made two different sorts of incense then went to the library. No one bothered them. The Marauders were notably absent. It was almost tranquil.

Dinner was roast chicken, which no one at the Slytherin table ate with their fingers or threw the bones. She had a half-way pleasant conversation with Rosier about asparagus served either the French way, with hollandaise sauce, or the German way with butter.

The Varinens returned to the library until it closed and continued their reading in the Common Room. They went to bed late, slept in and arrived at breakfast for the owl post. Most deliveries were still things forgotten at home or congratulatory gifts to celebrate a parental-approved Sorting.

Neither Theo nor Hermione expected any correspondence so when a Great Grey owl landed between them they jumped. The bird's piercing yellow eyes glared at them imperiously from its broad face, giving the impression of a disapproving governess. It dropped a thick scroll from its talons then helped itself to Hermione's bacon.

Theo inspected the parchment, his face becoming more carefully neutral as he noticed the seal pressed into the dark wax. He put the missive in his bag and shook his head when Hermione asked about it. She didn't press for answers.

Half an hour and two Muffliato spells later, they stood in an empty classroom. A fine, warm autumn day had most of the students outside so it was no trouble to find a deserted space for a private discussion. Theo still hesitated.

"It's the Varinen seal." He explained, comparing the wax imprint to his signet ring. "No marks of difference. I was hoping it would have the cadence of a second son, but as you can see there's no labelling."

"Can we leave the heraldry aside for the moment?" Hermione asked. "So the letter is from the head of the family. Your grandfather's dad."

"Yes." Theo cast several detection charms over the scroll to be certain it wasn't trapped before breaking the seal. The parchment unrolled, smoothly cream and uncreased.

The same crest as on the wax headed the document, making the letter doubly official. The script beneath in thick black ink was in a language they presumed to be Finnish. The letters swam as they watched, reforming into English.

Theo and Hermione read the request from their putative grandfather that they present themselves at his London address immediately. They then stared at the request as though by mutual intent they could cause it to spontaneously combust.

"Well, shit." Hermione said eventually. "I presume there's no ignoring this."

"He'll have sent word to Dumbledore too. It's his right as the paterfamilias to compel our appearance. We've been using his surname as ours." Theo explained, trying not to sound as though he assumed she would be ignorant of the pure-blood custom.

"Now we're in bloody Ancient Rome." She muttered then nodded to herself. "So we have three options. One, we go to London and meet him. Two, we say we're going to London and just run. Three, we fort up in the Room of Requirement. I've got enough food to last us months."

"If we snub this somewhat polite request, Kajetan Varinen can press charges. Most patriarchs are very intense about impersonators." Theo weighed their luck. "I think we should bluff it out. We go meet him. He may simply demand we desist using the name as our father was disowned."

"He came all the way to London to ask us nicely to stop?" Hermione regretted she didn't know enough about wizarding society to judge how bad this was. "This is going to get sticky, isn't it?"

"Absolutely." He agreed grimly. "But if we keep our nerve, we may get through this. I am a Varinen by blood. If we're challenged about you not being related, I'll say you're my fianceé."

"Getting a bit ahead of yourself." She objected. "Or are we in the Land of Pure Blood again?"

"I wouldn't give you my name without some sort of contractual link between us." Theo was a little mortified by her brisk reaction then reminded himself that to Muggles, marriage was just something that happened like graduating or buying a vehicle. A pure-blood girl would at least thank him for the suggestion.

"So the story we give to Mister Varinen is we're, what, eloping from parental disapproval? That Orpheus is madly but pragmatically in love with Ophelia and after I grabbed my dowry jewels, we decided to hide out in Hogwarts?" Now they were escapees from a Regency novel.

"As a bastard, few pure-blood parents would accept me. They absolutely would not tolerate it if we married without their consent." Waiting out parental wrath was better than a political excuse. "Hogwarts is an ideal place, actually. Separate dorms, plenty of chaperones and old magic. Almost respectable."

"So who am I now? Still a pure-blood?" Hermione made a face when Theo nodded. "Right, so I can't be a Weasley as I don't have the hair. I could be a Longbottom. I know a bit about Neville's family. Enough to lie about it, anyway."

"Not ideal but we do have to give a name." Hopefully his great-grandfather wasn't personally acquainted with the Longbottoms sufficiently to be able to refute the existence of Ophelia. "Why would they object? They're Sacred Twenty-Eight but not that rarefied."

"One look at your arm." She didn't want to think about his Dark Mark. "Frank and Alice are Aurors. There've been quite a few in the Longbottom family, historically. If anyone insists on knowing why we've run from a nice family like them, roll up your sleeve."

"That would certainly end all questions." Theo conceded, bracing his shoulders. His father had been so proud of him. After he had been Marked, for the first time since his mother had died, Nott Manor had almost been happy. United in a righteous purpose.

A lie, but a seductive one.

The twins went to the Headmaster for permission to leave Hogwarts for the day. Dumbledore obliged without objection and while not suggesting he wanted to see the back of them, he left both Theo and Hermione with the impression he would've insisted they meet their grandfather.

They didn't speak on their way to the dungeons. They packed everything they might need and changed into good clothes. Their school books and trunks remained behind to give the suggestion the trip was brief. If they did have to run, everything they left could be easily replaced.

Their departure didn't go unnoticed. Snape watched them, and Regulus walked with the Varinens all the way to Hogsmeade. Theo gave the younger boy the authorised explanation, that their grandfather had an important family matter to discuss with them. The second son of the House of Black didn't ask what that matter was but whatever he deduced from their expressions did not seem to please him.

"You will kindly make me aware if there is any formal decision, won't you?" He asked, hesitating between words as though checking them for quality. Theo gave him a sharp look then a crisp nod. Hermione detected the subtext but could not decode it. Nothing more was said before the Varinens Apparated to London.

They arrived at Platform 9¾ then walked out into King's Cross Station, heading to the busy thoroughfare above. Theo and Hermione walked west towards Regent's Park, slipping into one of the leafy streets near the Royal College of Physicians.

The Varinen residence in London was a Georgian house at the end of a terrace, shaded from its neighbours and Muggle view in general by a large enchanted ash tree. Scroll in hand, Theo knocked on the front door. Ward magic drifted over them like a soft breeze as they waited.

The door was opened by a middle-aged man with shoulder length caramel hair. He was lean and sharp featured, the lines at the corners of his mouth incised deeply. He frowned as he looked them over but took a step backwards to wordlessly invite them inside.

Stepping across the threshold, Hermione felt a tingle across her skin. She glanced at Theo but if he had sensed the magic too he showed no outward sign of it. They were gestured down the hallway into a parlour, where they sat on velvet sofa and waited in silence.

Their apparent host, as no one else was in the room, pulled two flat stones out of his pocket. He set them down on the carpet with one in front of Theo and one in front of Hermione. The thin tablets did nothing, the polished surface glinting flawless.

Theo evidently recognised what they were and drew his wand, touching the tip to the stone at his feet. His hand twitched, making his signet ring flash. The manorial seal inset in the ring was of the same stone, Hermione noticed.

Two crests appeared on Theo's tablet. One was the Varinens', and the other Hermione presumed was the Nott seal. She set her lips into a firm line and tapped her wand to her tablet. It seemed there would be no opportunity for lying today. The Muggle-born witch was interested to see what the heraldic tablet did in response to her lineage.

It showed two crests.

Which was rather anti-climatic. Hermione was expecting it to explode or shatter or set off the wards. The palm-sized stone sat there on the floor like Theo's, though her crests were different. She recognised one as the House of Black but the other was unfamiliar. Trying not to relax too visibly, she wondered how Theo had done it.

"When we read in the British paper that two of our family had shown themselves so publicly, I was surprised." The wizard spoke English with a heavy accent, taking his time to study the tablets. He picked them up for a closer look then sighed. "My brother has much to explain."

"He acknowledged us." Theo had brought the document Teuvo Varinen had signed. The older wizard scoffed.

"His name, his words are worthless. He chose the selfish path." He smoothed a thumb over Theo's tablet, causing the Varinen crest to flare briefly. "I thought perhaps you had paid him. Selling his birthright would not be beyond him. But you, nephew, are a Varinen and pure. The soul-stones cannot lie. Father will be pleased."

Hermione kept a carefully neutral expression. She had read of blood magic infused rune stones as part of her Ancient Runes homework during Sixth Year. While not precisely Dark, the Ministry had banned such objects as security risks. The stones could easily be turned into pass-keys to allow a genetic descendent to cross wards where they would not otherwise be allowed.

"Father requested I test you both before he saw you. He did not wish to trouble himself if you were imposters." There was an undercurrent of menace to that simple statement. It suggested that any imposters who crossed the Varinen family would not trouble anyone ever again. "You may follow me."

He went to a set of double doors in the far wall; heavy oak and incongruous in the pale period décor. The runes carved into the dark wood were old, the phrasing archaic but clearly for protection and health. The room beyond reminded Hermione of a bomb shelter with bare grey walls and harsh lighting.

An old man, thinned by time, sat on a low wooden chair. His eyes were bright but the rest of him was sunken. Magic could sustain even as the flesh failed, sometimes by will alone, but only for so long.

"Henrik." Katejan Varinen greeted his son, giving him tacit permission to act as host. The younger Varinen gave his father the rune tablets then cast a translation spell before making the introductions.

"Father, I present your grandson Orpheus. For once Teuvo did something right." Henrik Varinen was not a forgiving man. His brother had abandoned them to chase a light-skirt but something might yet be salvaged from the desertion.

"Of age. Good." The old wizard seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "At last." He looked at the crests, a smile twisting his lips. "You will adopt him, Henrik."

"Of course." There was no argument and no hint of resentment. Theo and Hermione exchanged a worried look. This meeting was not going at all how they had expected.

"The girl, also good." Katejan lifted his gaze from Hermione's tablet to the witch herself. He inspected her for long enough for the Muggle-born to stiffen, chin going up. "Yes." He spoke to his son. "Soon."

"As you wish, father." Henrik escorted the two young people out of the meditation room, hustling them back to the parlour before they could see their patriarch sag exhausted in his chair. He shut the oak doors tightly, activating the protective runes.

"What is soon?" Hermione asked because if she was going to be assessed she wanted to know her mark. The old man's gaze hadn't been rude but there was definitely something being planned without her consent.

"Your marriage to my nephew, Miss Lestrange." Henrik replied simply.


	16. Benediction

Hermione was pleased she didn't exclaim or swear. They had planned to lie about an engagement or betrothal or whatever was the correct pure-blood phrase, so she shouldn't be shocked. Therefore no outbursts of profanity or laughter. In fact, this was probably a situation where she should keep her mouth well shut. She looked to Theo to carry the can.

"My father has a daughter. A legitimate child." Theo accepted Hermione's abnegation of responsibility for this mess. He'd been the one to advocate for bluffing it out and he was better able to navigate the shoals of tradition. He had been reared to deal with events like this.

He would not succumb to his fierce urge to hex his great-uncle. He would be reasonable. He would mention Karina calmly and ensure his mother was not done out of her rightful inheritance. If the Varinens were so desperate for an heir then they had only to lift the attainder.

"Legitimacy is not the issue. We need a male heir." Henrik explained, aware of the coolness of the youngsters' responses. He was not surprised. The Lestranges never had many witches and prized those granted to them. The boy was doubtless sensitive about being a bastard. "The Varinens have a covenant we must honour."

"With whom?" Theo asked after Hermione shot him such a pointed look that he couldn't feign discretion. Henrik was reminded of his second wife. She had been clever and ambitious but not alas fertile.

"Nyyrikki, spirit of the hunt. A Horned God." Their guarded faces did not give much away, well-taught careful children he thought, but there was a hint of a blush from both. They understood why the family needed a male heir. "He guards our lands and we make sacrifice to him."

"And there are no other nephews? Cousins?" He did not want to sound keen to avoid the honour of becoming a scion of the House but he found it difficult to believe that if the Varinens had an agreement with a spirit of fertility that there were not a plethora of candidates.

"There are many of my age or older. We thought ourselves secure for the next generation, until my brother spurned the covenant." Henrik did not rage. His was an old, seething anger. "Our spouses must be approved by Nyyrikki. He is not demanding. It is a matter of respect. Teuvo insulted him and he has withdrawn from us."

"Is he punishing you?" Hermione asked, fascinated by this insight into old pagan magic.

"Wary of allying with weakness, Miss Lestrange?" Henrik held up a hand to still her apology. "Do not cavil. Power comes to those who strive for it." He approved of her fastidiousness. "No, we are not being punished. We struggle without him, much the same as other pure families."

"I will do my duty to the House of Varinen, but I will not force Ophelia to marry me. We want time." Theo spoke with an honesty only Hermione would understand. They wanted time badly.

"My father is dying." The fact was so absolute Henrik had become numb to it. "Give him the peace of a vow, even only a vow of midsummer, and when I am your paterfamilias I will give you your time. You should finish your education before you wed."

"That's fair." He caught Hermione's hand and gave her a warning squeeze before she objected. She looked more curious than offended so it was unlikely she understood the significance of a vow of midsummer. Which meant he would have to explain it, Merlin help him.

"I will prepare a room for you. The vow at least you can do here. Presenting you to Nyyrikki will have to wait until the solstice. There isn't time now for the necessary ceremonies before the equinox." Henrik departed, tactfully aware his nephew might need to persuade his young lady to oblige.

As soon as the parlour door shut, Theo and Hermione cast a Muffliato. She cast it for the usual reason. He cast it because this was not a conversation he wanted anyone to overhear lest he die from embarrassment.

"Why do we need a room for a vow?" Hermione asked with a deceptively placid smile. Ron or Harry would've hastily left the room or dived behind furniture at sight of that expression.

"The vow of midsummer is one of the class of affection promises. They are not considered binding oaths legally but they are a point of honour." He took refuge in a scholarly lecture. She listened patiently. "This particular vow is a promise to give one's virginity to each other."

"That's going to be rather difficult for us to fulfil, then." She refused to be shy about this. They were adults. No blushing or giggling.

"Not necessarily." Theo continued tenaciously. If she laughed then he would simply have to endure it. "The vow requires no previous sexual congress between the partners and for both to be virgins. I am, physically and temporally. You are, temporally. You have not, in chronological time, actually had sex yet."

"And you're sure that'll work?" If the vows weren't legally enforceable then there was some wiggle room presumably. Hermione thought Theo's suggestion was a lawyer's solution; technically correct within the letter but not within the spirit of the law.

"Yes, I did quite a lot of reading about the vow of midsummer." He gritted his teeth. "I thought it was romantic. I had planned to make the vow myself with my betrothed. So, yes, I am sure."

"I'm sorry." She spared a moment for his feelings. This vow wasn't something she wanted to do at all, but at least she wasn't sharing her first time with someone she didn't love.

"I think we should make the vow. The hunting spirit might be able to help us. Such creatures exist beyond, or maybe between, time." Theo tried to be cold. This would be much easier if he didn't care.

"There isn't a kind way of saying this, but I don't want to sleep with you." Hermione had to be honest. She did agree that a Horned God was powerful enough in its own magic that it might be able to aid them, especially if Theo renewed the covenant. But she wasn't going to prostitute herself to find out.

"I am aware of that." He was proud he managed a detached tone of voice. "We don't need to have full intercourse. That was never part of the vow. I expect because virgins are inclined to be nervous and..."

"Finish before they've started." She provided an acceptable euphemism.

"Exactly." Theo felt slightly ill. This was not how a respectable wizard spoke to a witch, unless she was a whore. And Hermione wasn't, not at all. He wondered if sort of cheating applied to her 'sort of dating' with Weasley. "You need to touch me. Specifically a fond embrace. That's all."

"While you take matters in hand." A double entendre this time, which Hermione hoped would make things a little less awkward. Judging from Theo's face, it hadn't.

"Yes." He bit the word.

"This vow gets us on side with your great-uncle. You are actually an heir. You could probably even get the attainder lifted on your mother before we leave." Hermione recapped to have everything clear in her mind, and to not think about the physicalities.

"I had considered that, yes." Theo nodded. "We could be home by the New Year, if the spirit is able to help. I'm not taking anything from anyone by accepting the covenant. There can be multiple avowed. And when we go, the family can find another heir."

"This would've been a lot easier if you'd charmed my tablet with the same crests as yours." She could bitch now, more sure it wouldn't start a quarrel.

"I didn't charm the tablet. I thought you did." Theo had assumed she knew the Black crest from her time at Grimmauld Place and the Lestrange crest from research. Hermione knew a lot about Death Eaters so her knowledge of their family heraldry was plausible.

"I didn't." Hermione stared at him, wondering if this was an attempt to lighten the mood. Theo hadn't struck her as a joker. "You really didn't?"

"I swear, no." He shook his head firmly. "You've never used a heritage charm?"

"Why would I? I know who my parents are!" Her voice rose as the significance of the rune tablet hit her. "Would your uncle have faked it?"

"For what purpose? I don't need to be married to join the covenant. The Varinens are a respectable family. Once adopted, Orpheus wouldn't have any trouble finding a suitable wife." Theo cudgelled his brain trying to remember all the marriages between the Blacks and the Lestranges. Attempting to give himself a credible union other than the most obvious.

"The tablets display father on the right and mother on the left, correct? That's why Henrik called me Miss Lestrange." Hermione needed to research the damn things immediately. Could the result be corrupted from a curse? She'd bled when Bellatrix had carved up her arm.

"Not quite. If you're legitimate, your father is on the right. If you're a bastard, your mother is. By rightful surname, you see?" He explained, not liking the quiet little thought in his head that Hermione was even more suitable now. A nice pure-blood girl. "That's why my tablet looked correct for an illegitimate child of my grandfather."

"So your uncle assumed I'm legitimate." That had been their planned lie, after all. She tried to get her wits back and focussed on the new information. Shrieking NO NO NO in her own skull wouldn't help. "The tablets don't show the difference?"

"All the ritual cares about is direct descent. A kin tie. It's blood magic. Marriage is essentially only paperwork." Theo couldn't think of any Lestrange witches who'd had affairs with Black wizards. Sirius might have put himself about but Rodolphus and Rabastan didn't have any sisters. There could be someone from the French branch of the family, but then paternity became an issue.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Hermione let herself swear then took a deep, slow, meditative breath. "It doesn't matter." She said firmly. She met Theo's eyes. "It doesn't matter. I know who I am."

"A lucky fluke?" He asked and she nodded sharply. If she did not want to confront her heritage then he would also try to ignore it. They had plenty of other conundra to solve.

Henrik returned before they could discuss anything further. When Theo confirmed they were ready, he again presented them to his father. Katejan Varinen was visibly tired and as much effort as he put into keeping himself upright, it was obvious to everyone he was flagging. Theo and Hermione spoke the vow of midsummer, the old man accepted it as the best that could be done quickly and gave his blessing.

The room upstairs was patterned. That was the first, strongest impression. Rosettes on the ceiling. Panoramic scenes on the wallpaper. Turkish carpet. A brocade canopy on the bed. Even the dresser was made of figured wood, something dark like walnut. Henrik informed them he would be in the library and that if they required anything, they could use the bell-pull to ring for him.

"No house elves?" Theo asked. He would've preferred not having to ask his great-uncle for anything they couldn't conjure themselves. That was not a conversation likely to make completing his vow any easier.

"The covenant forbids it. We are bound to Nyyrikki, not little kotihaltija." Henrik used the Finnish term. He had no dislike for the elves of the home but they were not allies of his family's patron. "Relying on domestic fey makes wizards lazy."

"I have often thought so." Hermione smiled and firmly shut the bedroom door after the older wizard. Theo sat down on the end of the bed, toeing off his shoes. If a portal had suddenly appeared before him, he would have leapt into it no questions asked. But no escape appeared.

"This is going to be excruciatingly awkward." He observed, uncertain whether being clinical would aid matters. It certainly did not inspire any arousal.

"I'll help as much as I can." She sat beside him, kicking off her shoes too. "I know a Daydream Charm the twins, the Weasley twins Fred and George I mean, developed. You can just drift away in your own imagination while I hug you. That'd be enough, won't it?"

"Some skin contact would help. If we take off our shirts." Theo spoke slowly to steady his breathing. Hermione shifted, sliding behind him so her legs were on either side of his. She unbuttoned her blouse as he took off his jacket and tie.

"I'll cast the charm then undo your shirt. We'll use it as a sort of count down into the daydream." Hermione suggested, trying to make this experience as not unpleasant as she could. "You can think whatever you like. Don't mind me."

"I'll Silence myself. I'd rather not have you hear me." Having an audience as he groaned and grunted was not arousing either. Theo tried not to tally everything that was not getting him stiff. Even the décor was putting him off. Who put tassels on bedlinen?

"Would you like me to wear a blindfold or something?" She wouldn't use magic to temporarily blind herself but she would be willing to oblige by tying her blouse over her eyes.

"Let's not cross the line into ridiculous quite yet." Theo assayed a smirk with a dry mouth. "All I ask is that you keep this to yourself. I value my privacy."

"Of course." Hermione promised. She tucked her arms under his, snuggling closer. "You smell nice."

"Vetiver and sage." He tried to relax against her, removing his cuff links and palming his wand. Theo cast the Silencing Charm on himself.

"Increase and clarity." She recalled the uses of the aromatic components in his cologne. Hermione cast the Daydream Charm then tucked her wand at the small of her back. Her hands shook a little as she began to undo the buttons of Theo's shirt. She started at his collar, metaphorically freeing him from constraint, and worked down to his waist. Her fingers splayed across his stomach as she bared him.

Theo closed his eyes, allowing himself to drift into the idle dream. He still knew where he was. He could feel the mattress beneath him and the warmth of her at his back but the sensations were remote. Her breath on the back of his neck made a shiver run down his spine, grounding in his pelvic chakra.

He gripped himself through his trousers, rubbing gently at first as the images in his mind coalesced. Hermione had given him permission to follow whatever fantasy he liked, a carte blanche she probably did not realise would involve her.

They kissed. Her soft mouth curved in a smile against his lips. She wore red as she had at the Weasley wedding, the skirt swirling around her legs. She twirled for him laughing. He reached for her, caught a stray curl and tugged her close, kissing her bare neck as he had wanted to at the Yule Ball.

Hermione held him tighter as Theo leaned against her, his hands busy. She tried to think of other things than what he was doing. She rested her cheek against his back, resolving not to peek to give him that much privacy at least.

In his mind, she cuddled against him, her hands straying from their modest place at his waist to caress him. He hardened at that thought as her presence reinforced the daydream. Theo unfastened his fly and freed his length, stroking himself as the girl in his mind held him close.

Hermione felt him get warmer as his skin flushed with arousal. She clamped her eyes tighter shut, leaning backwards when he arched to keep them from falling off the end of the bed. There was something; a tingle of magic on her skin. She couldn't deny this was intimate. Maybe that was the point of the vow. To affirm a bond of closeness between two people.

Theo climaxed with a soundless moan. His daydream girl did that thing with her tongue he'd heard older boys talk about. A filthy thing he'd thought at the time but now he could see the appeal. He could feel her there with him, smell her scent. He sighed regretfully. It was after all only a fantasy.


	17. Beldam

Hermione didn't break their hug until Theo patted her hand. She didn't want to shove him aside or distance herself as though they had just done something dirty. The Muggle-born couldn't say she was terribly comfortable with what had happened but they had done it together. That should count for something.

"Voce." Hermione cast the counter-charm then turned her back so Theo could clean up.

"Done." He said when everything was tidy.

"Do you report to your uncle now? Would he know if we hadn't completed the vow?" She didn't like making promises she didn't keep but if the affection promises weren't binding then perhaps they could have spared themselves.

"I'd know." Theo shrugged his shirt back on and buttoned it. "There are spells to detect oath-breaking. They're fairly obscure but most of the old families have a copy of the rite somewhere. Lies stain."

"And we've been spewing enough lately. I take your point." Hermione got dressed and re-charmed her hair, which was as usual trying to escape its braids. "What was that bit with Regulus about a decision? Does he think we're in with Grindelwald too?"

"He was asking me to tell him if our family contracted your marriage. I think he wants to offer for you." He had been surprised at the query but on reflection, if his family thought Sirius was going to disgrace them, Regulus could be under pressure to secure a wife before his brother made the Blacks look worse.

"He barely knows me!" She tried to be nice to the boy because she felt sorry for him. He'd been left, all but forgotten except by his mother. Would be left. Will have been. Bloody verb tenses.

"We were polite to his mother and you've been kind to him." Theo put his shoes and jacket on then stood. "Marriages have been arranged on less."

"And we're pure-bloods." Hermione slid off the bed, trying not to grimace. It bothered her. Still. Probably perpetually would. Blood status should not divide the community so deeply.

"That too." The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black would never consider a spouse less than completely pure. He'd expect part of the matrimonial negotiations would include inspection of the candidate's lineage.

"We are not going to tell anyone about this." She was adamant. "As far as anyone at Hogwarts is concerned, we're twins and this visit was a routine family thing."

"That suits me." Theo did not want to complicate their lies unduly. And if Hermione didn't want to face her heritage then they might as well continue their pretence unaltered. "I'll tell Regulus there was some discussion. Any pure-blood girl of your age would have started considering a husband, but that you've been given leave to wait."

"Gracious." Being given leave not to marry straight out of school did not strike Hermione as generous. "Why doesn't he have more friends? I know Slytherins are pathologically aloof but he doesn't seem to have any chums."

"The Blacks have been unstable for a while. This last generation more so. Andromeda's marriage to the Muggle-born and Sirius's Sorting indicate the House is starting to fracture." He recalled his father's assessments of the family, a tacit warning to keep his distance. "It's a pattern quite common to very pure Houses."

"Inbreeding depression." Hermione spoke then paused to quell the flurry of questions besetting her. It didn't apply to her. She wasn't part of the House. It wasn't her problem. She was a Granger. "I hate this."

"Yes." Theo offered her his hand and she took it. They went to find the library and report the completion of their vow.

Henrik Varinen was sitting on a padded bench in a bay window taking advantage of the sun to transcribe his great-grandfather's personal journal. He had ransacked his family's library to aid them in reaffirming the covenant. His father believed presenting Nyyrikki with a new heir and an apology would be enough. Henrik was unwilling to make that assumption.

When the young ones entered the library he noted their attention go first to the books. That his nephew had inherited the Varinen studiousness rather than his father's pathetic need for affirmation was another asset. The girl too seemed a scholar, which boded well for the stability of their children. He would encourage them to have as many as Nyyrikki could grant as insurance against a repeat of his generation's failure.

"Good morning." Henrik greeted them. The boy stepped forward to tell him what he could already see. They had done it. Their awkwardness and Miss Lestrange's reserve told him enough. He forestalled Orpheus's announcement. "No need to abase yourself. It is enough I have your word."

"You do." Theo did not fidget or look away. Stern paternal instruction to stand up straight rang in his ears. "Is there anything else you require, uncle?"

"Not at this time. We will return home as soon as father has recovered enough to Portkey." He glanced at the resolute autumn sun. "Kindly join me for luncheon. I will need your signature on the adoption papers also. A formality but we do not wish Teuvo to interfere."

"Is he likely to?" Hermione asked, aware of the rigid set of Henrik's shoulders. He carried himself like Professor Snape; all feeling well tamped down.

"He will try for money from you." His brother periodically wrote demanding support to the fury of their father. Henrik had meticulously checked every trust, bequest and account that might have escaped the attainder. He had sent everything to which his former sibling was entitled and not a Knut more. "He was happy to be indulged until it came to pay what he owed."

Lunch was quiet, the sort of pantry banquet Hermione had eaten at the homes of her parents' French friends. A cold collation. Katejan did not join them and Henrik gave no explanation for the old wizard's absence. Neither Theo nor Hermione asked.

"Where did you get your ring?" The question came out of the restful silence like a shark's fin in still water.

"From my mother." Theo answered without a lie. Karina Nott had been the one to give him his manorial ring. His father had it made for him but had been late for his birthday dinner. They had sat up waiting until almost midnight before his mother had given him the ring so he would have it on his birthday.

Theo removed the transfiguration concealing the Nott crest and extended his hand for his great-uncle to inspect. He did not remove the ring and would not if he had been asked.

"Do you wish her told?" Henrik settled on that phrase after much mental translation. Teuvo could be very charming when the mood took him. Whatever the consequences of bearing a bastard child the Nott witch had faced, the Varinens had not been informed of the boy's birth.

"She's dead." Theo said quietly as a rictus of pain clenched his chest. His mother was safe in Caen and he could never see her.

"My condolences." Henrik was formal because it was expected. Privately, he was glad. He did not want his nephew to have any conflicting loyalties.

Conversation faded. When they had finished eating, Henrik brought out the documents his father had ordered prepared after it became obvious their efforts to sire a male heir had failed. They had already been looking for bastard sons when the Prophet had brought Orpheus to their attention. All that remained now was to legitimise him.

As Theo had reached the age of majority and Katejan had already signed the papers, the adoption required only Theo's signature and that of two witnesses. Henrik signed readily. The quest for a son had cost him three marriages and a fair portion of his pride. Hermione hesitated.

"Do these forms need to be lodged officially?" It was a silly question. She assumed they would need to go to the Finnish Ministry at least, possibly to the British Ministry as well. But Hermione didn't want to outright say she wasn't sure which signature to use. "I don't want my family to find me. They are not forgiving."

"We will need to submit them but they can be warded, Miss Lestrange." Henrik assured, reassured himself that her allegiance seemed to be with his nephew. In time, once the match was formalised, they could make overtures to her relatives. A respectable marriage would do much to sooth parental feelings. And if her kin did cut her off, she would be all the more loyal to his family.

Hermione took the quill from Henrik Varinen and wrote a name where he indicated. It was not her name. It was just a name that matched the rune stone, which had been duped somehow. Just a name.

Nemesia Invicta Lestrange.

The ink glittered blue for a moment then Henrik rolled the documents into a scroll case, sealing it with a touch of his signet ring.

"Thank you, son." The older wizard put a hand on Theo's shoulder. The boy had done the family a great service. Even if Nyyrikii rejected him for some reason, he was young and could sire sons. He had bought them precious time.

"My honour, father." Theo replied automatically as he would to his biological father. What he wanted most at this moment was to go to his bed and pull the blankets over his head until the bad dreams went away.

What happened instead was the 'twins' Apparated to Hogsmeade. The village was sombre, the damage still stark. Residents were picking over the debris for personal items before it was transfigured into building materials.

Madam Rosmerta was the first to recognise them. She abandoned the endless task of mending her smashed crockery to hug Ophelia then Orpheus. Theo regretted he wasn't in the right frame of mind to appreciate her bosomy embrace. Mostly he felt suffocated.

Davydd McHavelock, of the eponymous Headgear store, limped over and shook their hands. He'd seen Ophelia's Patronus while stumbling through the forest and had followed the streak of light to Hogwarts.

"I thought I'd die in the dark, hunted down by those bastards." The Welshman confessed. "We all did. Like the night had come alive and hungered."

"None of that." Rosmerta interrupted hurriedly. She'd not slept since the attack, seeing Death Eaters in every shadow. "We're thankful. So lucky you have the Sight. A gift from Nimue herself, I'd say."

"You heard about my vision?" Hermione asked, dismayed.

"Oh, yes, dear. Everyone has. When the students came down to help, just the older ones, mind, they were all talking about it." The dark smudges under the witch's eyes seemed to hollow, her full mouth thinning with tension. "You will warn us, won't you, if they attack again?"

There were years of fear in her voice. The First War had lasted almost a decade of sniping, vicious skirmishes. Hermione wanted to tell her it would be alright, that everything worked out in the end. But worse was to come and the platitudes withered on her tongue.

"If I See anything, of course I will warn you." She had learned from Harry's dogged denials that people simply did not hear an outright refusal. They wanted reassurance not facts. Hermione lifted her chin and said firmly. "The best thing you can do is pack a small bag of supplies and always have it on you. Then if anything happens, you can just leave. Get out of trouble's way."

"Run?" McHavelock was tired too, his skin waxy from the aftermath of stress. Theo had seen that sheen over pallor often. No matter the bluster or the nonchalance, the fear sweated out.

"Withdraw." Orpheus Varinen's cool, imperturbable voice joined his sister's in soothing the frightened. They knew what they were doing. They had kept cool heads in a crisis. Everything would be fine. "It's the sensible thing to do. The Death Eaters are thugs and vicious bullies. They want to terrorise you. Your best defiance is to be somewhere else."

"And let them smash up the place?" He wanted an excuse so badly Hermione almost winced in sympathy. No one liked thinking themselves a coward.

"You can rebuild." Ophelia's confidence was fuelled significantly by Hermione's knowledge that Davydd McHavelock did rebuild. And quite successfully. He opened a shop in Knockturn Alley for very daring headgear indeed. "No material thing is worth your life, and as a wizard what can't you fix?"

"You have a point." McHavelock chuckled wryly. "Two fingers to the bastards, right?"

"A workable policy." The twins agreed, with tight, formal smiles. Rosmerta hugged them again and McHavelock nodded. They went back to work visibly less tense.

"We sounded like politicians." Theo suppressed a grimace.

"Just so long as we don't sound like Tom." Hermione mirrored his expression. They walked quickly out of the village, skirting the houses where people were working, to avoid a repetition. They both felt like frauds.

The Slytherin Common Room was a welcome oasis of calm. Theo and Hermione took refuge in their corner but didn't read. Mental fatigue sapped any urge to prepare for Monday's classes.

They'd been sitting there idly staring at the light shimmering across the stone walls for a quarter of an hour when Hermione suddenly sat upright.

"Fairy stones." She said, the idea blossoming from a recollection of Theo's description of fey living between time. Hastily casting a Muffliato, Hermione spoke quickly before she convinced herself her notion was daft. "Maybe that pebble I had in my hand before we left was a way-stone. Did you get a look at it?"

"Not closely. I think it was pale." He'd stared at her twitching fingers but what she had been holding hadn't made an impression on him. "Let's go look."

"It's sounds stupid." Hermione confessed.

"I am prepared to try anything." Theo stood and they left the Common Room. He became aware they were holding hands as he began climbing the stairs. Hermione let go when he paused and they decided not to notice that they hadn't noticed previously.

The Varinens sauntered at their contrived casual pace to the edge of the lake, finding the tree where Theo had been reading before they had slipped through time. The shore was not shy of pebbles.

"I picked one up about here and skipped it. Five times." Hermione methodically walked through the events prior to the ward discharge. "Then I picked up another one nearby. I don't think I took a step."

"No, you'd stopped." Theo confirmed. "I'd looked up when I heard footsteps and I saw you skip the stone." He sat down and mimed reading. "Damn it, the book." In the tumult of the past week he'd given no thought to what hadn't accompanied them.

"What edition was it?" Wizarding publications didn't always include the date on the title page but Nex Hex had been significantly updated in the wake of the First War. It now included several spells crafted by Death Eaters, who would be very interested to find their personal curses in print.

"The latest I could find. Nineteen ninety-five, I believe." He pulled out his wand and did the most obvious thing. "Accio Nex Hex."

There was a sodden rustling in the long grass then a lump of paper flew at Theo's head. He ducked and it splatted against the tree trunk. Upon investigation, they found the remains of Theo's book, good now only for papier-mache in a shallow seep where the ground was damp.

"Bloody Hell." Hermione blinked, irrationally upset at the destruction of the tome. It wasn't even hers but it was so wasteful. "If we'd remembered earlier." She scrubbed a hand across her eyes, trying to convince herself she wasn't crying over a book.

"It's alright." Theo stepped forward, his shoes squelching in the mud. He put his arms around her unthinkingly and held her as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

"So stupid." She sniffed, her shoulders shaking.

"It's alright." He repeated, rubbing her back. "I'll get another copy." Theo didn't for a moment think this was about his lost literature. They had been through a lot today. He felt her arms wrap around his waist. It was nice. He wished... but anyone might chance across them and intrude.

"The library has a copy in the Restricted Section." Hermione told his shirt front. She sniffed again, hoping she wasn't getting snot on him then suddenly stiffened. "Shit! What time is it? I'm supposed to meet Gupta and Evans in the Library!"


	18. Bedizen

Hermione would have rushed there and apologised for being a few minutes late. Ophelia walked at a sedate pace and made no apology as she arrived at quarter past three with her brother in tow.

Evans glared then pointedly opened her books to start working on their shared Arithmancy problem. She looked back up at the still standing Varinens then at Nehal Gupta, who tried to covertly give her the correct social cue.

"You are the hostess. You invite us to sit." Hermione had paid attention to Theo's crash course on pure-blood manners. She felt like she was trapped in a Victorian penny dreadful.

"Please take a seat." Lily invited, wondering how often she had looked like a clod because no one had ever explained the etiquette. "You're late."

"We are." Theo agreed. He didn't smirk. Hermione had to work with Evans, and he couldn't really blame the redhead for being rude. She didn't know any better. He speculated tangentially if she was related to a Squib Weasley. That flaming hair was uncommon.

"And what's the usual protocol for that? Do I sneer quietly or do we not mention it?" Lily wasn't going to sit mutely while he smugged at her.

"Not mentioning it is generally done. We know we're late. If we were social equals, we would offer an excuse." He explained and weathered Evans's glare.

"Snob." She drew herself up, pointedly setting the parchment with the equation on the table where they could all see it. "Have you at least reviewed your section?"

"No." Hermione admitted. She'd looked at it during class to verify it was a standard transposition problem with complex layered variables. Fiddly to do properly. Professor Vector had given them something similar at the beginning of her original Sixth Year. The trick was to remove the constants from the framework.

"Are you taking this seriously at all? It's supposed to be a group assignment." Lily had expected this when she and Nehal had been paired with a Slytherin. The Professor had been impressed with the twins' work but that didn't mean they wouldn't expect a lowly Muggle-born to do their homework for them.

"Have you factored for the inbuilt constant in the grid?" Ophelia's voice, Hermione's question. And Hermione's hidden smile. She glanced at Theo, who was trying not to chuckle. Evans sounded so much like an irritated Granger she could've been Polyjuiced.

"Which constant?" Nehal Gupta asked as Lily stared at the Slytherins. They were distracted by something, which gave the impression they didn't care about this assignment. Nehal watched their hands as they answered her question. Her mother always said hands were the honest face. The tendons along the inside of their thumbs did not relax in harmony with the casual explanation Ophelia gave.

Nehal took notes, Arithmancy was her favourite subject, but her attention was on their hands. She noticed they both kept their wands up their left sleeves. The ends were just visible when they rested their arms on the table. Their left hands though were kept guarded. No, their left arms. Both the twins sat with their right side slightly forward. It wasn't much. She only noticed because she made a habit of watching.

The Varinens were both right-handed, so leading with that side was not unusual. It would be tempting to discount her observations entirely. However she had been Sorted into Ravenclaw because she was intellectually rigorous.

The obvious conclusion was what likely had provoked the confrontation between the twins and the Gryffindors. Rumours about it were all over the school. Nehal viewed gossip like an archaeologist viewed a midden; something to be sifted through for the occasional treasure. And what interested her, was how two home-schooled students managed to incapacitate four of the school's greatest troublemakers. Without anyone intervening.

They had won thoroughly enough to send the four Gryffindors to the Hospital Wing, and quietly and quickly enough no one had noticed until one of her House had discovered the unconscious boys. Nehal considered herself an excellent duellist. Two-on-one was always a challenge.

She stopped writing when Ophelia's clear explanation of Advanced Arithmantic Theory ended. Evans was frowning at her own notes, making little annotations. It seemed she had temporarily forgotten to be offended by the Varinens' prickly manners.

Their manners bothered Nehal. She didn't have enough data to determine why she was bothered. It was irritating. The Ravenclaw was certain there was some undercurrent to their behaviour she was missing.

"I thought you said you didn't review the assignment?" Lily put her quill down, rubbing her hand. The Varinen girl certainly knew her stuff. Must be nice to have tutors.

"Correct." Theo sneered. Hermione had got quite chatty explaining the Arithmancy work. She couldn't help herself. They needed now to put some distance between themselves and their classmates. "We didn't need to."

His arrogance broke the fragile accord the joy of learning had fostered. Evans cast a drying charm on her notes and collected her books.

"Since this meeting was such a success," She said with heavy sarcasm. "I suggest we take half an hour before the next class to combine our work. I'm sure we can manage to finish now you've condescended to teach us." The Gryffindor stalked away from the table with Gupta following somewhat more stately in her wake.

"That was crass of you." Hermione frowned, watching her best friend's mother leave in a huff.

"We can't be friends with them." He reminded her.

"I know. I know. Eyes on the goal. I know." The newly minted Slytherin sighed. As they were already in the library, they did their homework. It seemed the sensible thing to do.

Dinner found them sitting between Regulus Black and Evan Rosier opposite Adrian Urquart, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. He usually sat somewhere anonymously in the middle of the Sixth Years but he'd been shoved down the bench when the Slytherin girls had decided to sit all on one side to facilitate their ogling of Dermot Fawley, the Head Boy.

"Did you have a nice outing?" Urquart asked the Varinens, hopeful they might have seen something of London. He hankered after the Muggle galleries, but of course couldn't say so. He made the attempt at conversation to cover some of his disquiet. His maternal grandmother was a Seer so he knew the mien of an oracle. Ophelia Varinen wasn't one. And knowing that made him very nervous.

"No." Theo replied crisply, conveying with a monosyllable his complete disinterest in Urquart's opinion.

"Our grandfather is dying." Hermione told the unsettled boy. Theo didn't want them making friends but there was no need to be an arse to everyone. "So, no, it wasn't nice but thank you for asking."

Well mannered, their Housemates offered their condolences. Rosier murmured something to Theo that Hermione didn't catch, to which her twin simply nodded. Later in the library, she asked about it.

"He wanted to know if we were linear heirs, that is direct in line with the Head of the House." Theo explained in their quiet corner after casting their usual array of protections. "Mourning makes a difference if you are the eldest child or eldest child of the child of the Head of the House. It used to be the whole House would go into mourning but now it's just the linear heirs who observe."

"What's expected of us when Mister Varinen passes?" Hermione asked tactfully. He might not know the old man well but Katejan Varinen was still Theo's great-grandfather. Family mattered.

"We'll need to cover our hair. Traditionally, all the hair was shorn and buried with the deceased to add our essence to the protective wards over their coffin. Grave-robbing used to be a real danger." He didn't need to tell her all the different magical items that could be made with a wizard's corpse.

Hermione got out her notebook rather than quill and parchment. The journal was heavily warded and she kept it on her at all times. Everything she needed to remember that she couldn't risk being read by someone else, went into her notebook.

"Cover our hair. All the time?" She asked, pen poised.

"Except went bathing and sleeping." Theo confirmed. "No parties, no alcohol. No libidinous activities, which covers a range of frivolous things not just sex. For a full lunar month."

"We will be pulled out of school?" Hermione would do what she must to maintain their cover and to be polite but leaving Hogwarts exposed them to significantly more risk.

"I doubt it. People in mourning aren't supposed to travel. It's considered frivolous." Historically, the linear heirs were more likely to be educated at home, groomed for their eventual position as Head of the House, while their siblings went to Hogwarts for a more general education. "Basically, we'll eat separately from everyone, keep a sombre visage, that's a quote, and pretend to be sad."

"How strict should you and I be about it? I mean, this is something Ophelia should know." She'd look up the ritual customs to make sure she didn't break a taboo.

"We're of age so fairly strict. We should keep even more to ourselves. Pure-bloods will understand the custom and won't invite us to join them. If anyone asks you to study with them or go to Hogsmeade or generally do anything fun, you need to refuse. They shouldn't even ask."

"How does observant mourning affect us? You and me, not Ophelia and Orpheus." She clarified the difference. If they stayed in the past much longer she'd need to draw up a chart to keep track of which of her selves knew what.

"You've been welcomed into the house of my family. With the vow of midsummer, we've made a tentative understanding. Mourning with me would be expected if we're serious. On the other hand, as there's nothing official, you could simply avoid me in the same way everyone else would. Mostly it's a matter of courtesy." And awkwardness.

"I'll observe with you, if you don't mind. I don't want to say that it'll help our lies but you know it will." That was more heartless than she wanted to be but Hermione felt she should acknowledge the advantage.

"I understand. Don't worry, I'm not hurt. Before, I never met him. None of the rest of the family except her father came to my mother's funeral." Theo didn't sound angry. He didn't sound emotional at all, which was a sign he was holding onto something very strong, very tightly. Hermione put her hand on his.

"I really wish Divination wasn't a load of rubbish." Hermione lamented. "A bit of forewarning would've been nice. If I'd known, I wouldn't have unpacked all my books." When Theo laughed, she glared at him. "What? They would've been useful."

"You're right." He agreed, an odd smile on his face. Right. Perfect. Theo gathered that feeling carefully in his mind and tucked it away somewhere safe. He'd bask in that warm glow later. For now it was enough just to have it.

They worked until curfew and checked out books to continue studying once they'd sequestered themselves with the other Snakes. Their return to the dungeon was delayed by the discovery of a fellow Slytherin dangling from the ceiling on the third floor.

"Regulus!" Hermione recognised him as she and Theo approached. He'd been Silenced so he couldn't cry out then hoisted up there like a chandelier. They got him down, he mimed something then dashed off, leaving the witch a little offended.

"Bladder." Theo murmured. "I expect he's been up there for a while."

"His brother?" Hermione asked more for confirmation he was thinking what she was thinking. That the rift in the House of Black was becoming irreconcilable.

"I expect so. Regulus would've been caught, shamed and doubtless mocked by our House. What better way to get back at Mama?" They waited for Regulus to return and when he did, cast Finite so he could speak.

"Thank you." The younger wizard was almost shaking with suppressed anger. He was trying so hard to be formal, to maintain face in the face of shame that Hermione couldn't bear it. She hugged him.

"Rat-bags, the lot of them." She consoled, releasing him and tidying his robe where she'd disarranged with her hug just like she would have for Harry. Regulus stared at her hands, then her face then hastily at her brother.

"We'll be late if we don't go now." Theo said blandly while inwardly cursing all Gryffindors and their regrettable compassion. The three of them walked briskly in silence, reaching the concealed door to the Slytherin Dungeon just as two of the Prefects exited to begin their curfew patrol. There was an assessing pause but the Fifth Years opted not to challenge Black or the Varinens.

The Common Room was crowded but the Second Years who were loafing in the twins' usual chairs vacated them quickly. Regulus excused himself, hurrying away to his dorm. Theo cast a Muffliato then sat staring at Hermione speechlessly.

"What?" She demanded, disliking the weary patient look he was giving her. "Am I not supposed to hug people?"

"Correct." He'd forgotten she was a Muggle-born. She'd be doing so well pretending to be Ophelia he'd let it slip his mind that she hadn't been raised properly. "And straightening his clothes afterwards. Very wifely."

"You've got to be joking." Hermione had done it solely from years of trying to keep her best friends from looking like they'd dressed in the dark. Ron could wrinkle a shirt just by glancing at it.

"Sadly, no. Pure-bloods, particularly young unmarried ones, don't touch each other. It implies intimacy. Social and physical." Theo cautioned. His father had been very firm on the conduct expected of a sole heir. He needed to avoid being trapped by money-hungry witches ambitious to become the next Lady Nott. Having his widowed father teach him Contraceptive Charms at eleven years old was still ranked high in Theo's list of embarrassments.

"Parkinson fondled Malfoy all the time. She used to pet him." She'd seen it often, particularly in Sixth Year when Pansy seemed to be extra clingy and she herself particularly sensitive to public displays of affection.

"They've known each other since they were in nappies. Pansy was angling for a marriage. She was desperate to get out of her parents' control. They don't get along." Not hearing the screeching arguments every time he visited the Parkinsons was an effort. Theo was sure there wasn't an ornament in the house that hadn't been mended at least once.

"Were they abusive?" Hermione had never expected to feel sympathy for the bitch but if her home life was unhappy that went a long way to explaining why Pansy was such a cow.

"They wanted a son. They remind her often what a disappointment she is." Theo had never seen Pansy with bruises but the emotional damage had been there. "She latched onto Draco because Lucius and Narcissa were kind to her."

"The worst thing my parents ever did to me was sign me up for ballet." She was so thankful she was a Muggle-born. Best of both worlds, excepting the ingrained prejudice.

"Please don't hug him again." He returned to the salient point of the conversation, trying not to smile at the image of a miniature Hermione in a tutu. "I know why you did it. But he doesn't. You made it clear to him, in front of your closest kinsman, that you are more than partial to him."

"Great." Hermione grumbled. "Back to being the Scarlet Woman again. At least bloody Skeeter isn't crawling about the place."

"We can use his infatuation." That got him a dagger glare. "I'm not suggesting you lead him on. We need to know what Tom's followers are doing. Snape won't help us and Rosier is too loyal to the cause to gossip."

"What happened to we can't be friendly?" When Theo didn't answer, Hermione lifted her gaze from her book-bag to his face. What she saw made her frown. They could be friendly with Regulus because he had died forgotten. History had chewed him up and swallowed him.


	19. Bellicose

Monday morning was Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, the prospect of which was enough to put Hermione off her breakfast. She wasn't worried about the class. She was dreading being asked by Professor McGonagall about the Patronus she had used to summon help during the attack on Hogsmeade.

She was hoping the task of wrangling a large class would distract her favourite teacher from inquiring too closely. Theo nudged her and they left the table early to head to the South Tower. Neither of them felt especially cheerful, anticipating a double class of keeping their heads down while biting their tongues.

"Rather than combing the lake front for pale pebbles, we should do some reading into fey magic." Theo suggested as they crossed the Middle Courtyard. He'd been considering ley lines and ward magic. Their return trip might not need solely to overcome time. Side-stepping it was possible.

"Fey magic is notoriously unreliable." Hermione commented but did not discount the line of inquiry. "We could..."

"Excuse me." A small voice interrupted their dour conversation. They both stopped, turning to see a girl sitting on a bench with the drawn face of a child trying hard not to look upset. She was a First Year, no question. When she approached them her robes even smelled new. "Could you tell me where the Charms classroom is, please?"

"Which one?" Hermione asked, pinching out a smile at the little Ravenclaw's politeness and the very precise way she had tied blue ribbons at the end of both of her fair plaits.

"Class ninety-nine." Rummaging in pockets accompanied her response as she produced her timetable and showed it to them. "I thought it was class nineteen but Cynthia said I had copied it wrongly."

Oddly, it was the girl's correct grammar that prompted Theo to look at the schedule. She was so earnest, so young that snubbing her would be like kicking a kitten.

"We're in classroom ninety-nine this morning, for Sixth Year Transfiguration. I expect Cynthia was playing a trick." He watched her expression change from worried to hurt.

"What's your name?" Hermione inquired to distract the little witch from the prank. She sympathised. Her primary school years had been replete with this sort of casual unkindness.

"Idra Deverill." She answered promptly. "Of the wand Deverills not the Quidditch Deverills."

Hermione understood the reference as she had both researched the Elder Wand and endured Ron's rant about the new manager at Puddlemere United, who had turned the team around from a lacklustre previous season. Which would have been fine, except his team had handed the Cannons such a humiliating defeat that even Ron couldn't keep watching the game.

"I'm Ophelia Varinen. This is my brother Orpheus." The pseudonyms got no more familiar with repetition. "And class nineteen is on the third floor next to the statue of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor. I'm sure someone has pointed out the one-eyed, hump-backed witch to you." In her time the distinctive statue had been a navigation point for new students.

"I know it, thank you." Idra bobbed her head in a gesture reminiscent of a bow then paused. Waiting for dismissal, Hermione realised in time to make the small shooing wave of her hand look natural. The girl went, and after she had gone Theo spoke quietly.

"She was at Little Hangleton when Tom returned. To stand for her father, who died in Tom's service." He rubbed his left arm and went unresisting with Hermione when she drew him into the cloister. "Her mother died when she was a child, so she understood. Idra was always very kind to me."

"She'd have been very young to take the Mark." Hermione said that only after a Muffliato.

"She didn't have one. Tom rewarded her with the Dark Mark after his resurrection." Theo shook himself, trying to shed the sepulchral feeling of walking on graves. "Her father had left her a charmed copy of his Mark so she would know when Tom returned."

"We have to get out of here. It's getting worse, not better." She put a hand on his arm, understanding entirely how he was feeling and absolutely not asking what had happened to Idra. She hadn't gone to Azkaban nor did Hermione recognise her name from the Wanted list. She didn't need to make Theo tell her the witch was dead.

"We will meet Nyyrikki at the winter solstice. So all we have to do is last until the Yule Break." He exhaled slowly. Hermione was right, though. The longer they stayed, the more out of place he felt.

"Months." Hermione bit back a groan. "One day at a time." The expression made her grimace. "We can wheedle a pass into the Restriction Section from Slughorn. We might find something useful in there though I wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore has censored the collection like he did with the books on horcuxes."

"I wouldn't blame him if he had. Imagine Tom with chronomancy." Theo paled as did Hermione. They could imagine it. They desperately did not want to do so.

"Let's just get through Transfiguration then go see Slughorn." She put her chin up, ready to face the morning. Theo mimicked her gesture and the Varinens went to face the lions.

They were still early for class and had their choice of seats. Theo held out a chair for his sister towards the back of the room then sat beside her. Their desk was well situated for a good vantage on the class without looking like they were skulking in the last row.

Avery arrived next and sat a pointed distance from them. The Gryffindor girls came chattering into the room, laughing at something. Evans ignored them and the other lionesses took her lead.

Snape was the last Slytherin, which was sufficiently unusual that both Hermione and Theo noticed. Due to their free target status, the serpent-get avoided being found alone. The Marauders weren't the only ones happy to get a few hexes in when the opportunity presented itself.

"He looks fine." Hermione observed after Snape took his place. Green had arranged themselves around the walls and towards the back while Red clustered in a defensible position in the middle.

"He could've taken the long way to evade that lot." Theo rolled his eyes towards the quartet sauntering into class a microsecond before they were late. Professor McGonagall shot them an acerbic look but did not comment. Evidently she wanted to get the lesson started before hostilities commenced.

Her lecture on Human Transfiguration was as fascinating as it had been the first time. Hermione took notes and was pleased to be able to identify references and nod as the Professor spoke. Theo scrawled the title of a book on his parchment and nudged it into her eye-line. She glanced at it then added a small exclamation mark.

When the mirrors were passed around so everyone could begin practising changing the colour of their eyebrows, Theo amused himself by turning himself blond. Years of watching Draco prance about like a fallen angel had given him good insight into how light played across fair hair. And a few months of serious soul-searching once puberty manifested.

In the end Draco's own abrasive personality had cured him of his schoolboy crush and he'd been thankful he hadn't said anything. Noticing how the sun made Padma Patil's skin glisten as though gilded and then covertly admiring Granger at the Yule Ball had reassured him that he wouldn't have to have a very private talk with his father. He didn't fear being disowned and arrangements would've been made for an heir but there was still a stigma.

Hermione smirked at him and his tousled honey locks. She stared fixedly at her mirror then at Theo then back at the mirror, putting a lot of effort into the change. The nose wasn't quite right. A few more mental tweaks.

"What do you think?" Hermione asked triumphantly as she looked at her 'twin' now a mirror image of him. Theo chuckled, inspecting his blond self in front of him.

"Ten points to Slytherin." McGonagall noticed the Varinens' efforts and wished not for the first time that students could stay at Hogwarts over summer. Perhaps seven years away from their fanatic parents might give the Snakes a chance to find their own way.

"Now he'll have someone to wank to." Sirius jeered. Professor McGonagall and the Varinens turned to glare at him. Some points were probably taken but he didn't hear what his Head of House said.

For a brief moment, just the flash of a second, Ophelia Varinen lost control of her Transfiguration. Her hair billowed in a mad, curly nimbus, darkening quickly. Her eyes went from blue to brown and somewhere in between were grey.

Sirius stared as though hit by a Full Body Bind. The change went away, reverting to a crown of braids and a frigid sneer but he had seen it. He was sure of the resemblance. He was sure he recognised who the Varinen bitch had meant him to see. His cousin Bellatrix. His cousin, the Death Eater.

He was being warned.

Sirius slumped in his chair and muttered something conciliatory to McGonagall. He kept quiet for the rest of the class before dragging James, Remus and Peter urgently away.

"That was odd." Theo remarked on the Marauders abrupt departure. Hermione shrugged. She'd ignored Sirius after his crude comment to work on some finer control of the changes. Maintaining the transfiguration was tiring and her hair seemed determined to break free at the slightest waver of her concentration. She hit it with another braiding charm then started packing up.

"Professor McGonagall did take twenty points for language. That might've got through to him." It probably hadn't. "They're likely planning something. Looks like it's back to security questions and paranoia."

"Apropos of caution, my favourite fruit is white grapes and when I was seven I ate an entire basket of them and was sick all over my mother's azaleas." Theo murmured, doubting anyone knew that story even in their own time.

"I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to Nutella. It's a Muggle hazelnut chocolate spread." She admitted as though confessing to a felony. Theo choked on a laugh and they were almost out the door when Professor McGonagall's sharp voice intruded.

"Miss Varinen, Mister Varinen, a word."

Because she was a Gryffindor and had survived much, much worse, Hermione turned around with a pleasantly neutral expression on her face. She had already decided what lie to tell. It was a good lie, reliable as lies went. She just had to get it out.

"Yes, Professor?" Hermione stood ready.

"A corporeal Patronus is very advanced magic." Minerva McGonagall began calmly, watching the girl. Years of teaching experience had given her a nose for falsehood and the Varinens clawed at her peace of mind. Albus was hiding something again, she knew it.

"So I understand." She agreed, not giving the expected explanation. Hermione kept her stance open, her face bland. She met McGonagall's gaze in a frank and even stare. Not too much eye contact but she didn't look away either.

"Who taught you?" The question was mild, the accompanying narrowed look was not.

"I taught myself, Professor. As a focussing exercise." Sorry, Harry. Hermione had been proud of her best friend mastering the complex spell and had been pleased to learn it from him. Ignoring that lesson now seemed particularly arrogant.

"And you, Mister Varinen? Can you cast a Patronus?" Her gimlet eyes turned to him and the 'twins' were thankful Professor McGonagall was not a Legilimens.

"Not yet, ma'am." Yet was important. Theo was very particular about including that 'yet'. The small word did not seem to have much impact on the Scottish witch so he added some more assurance. "It's on my To Do list."

"That's a Muggle expression. Professor Egg has mentioned to me that the two of you seem quite happy to be in his class." Minerva could count on one hand the number of Slytherins who had taken Muggle Studies in the last decade. The quiet Crouch boy was the only other Snake currently on the roll.

"Our mother was not attentive of whom we played with as children." Theo delivered the non-clarification in a drawl.

"Yet you were provided with a first class education." There was a palpable emphasis on the first word. McGonagall wanted answers. Theo didn't look at Hermione. He didn't want to seem to be colluding with her in their reply.

"The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it." Hermione didn't like the quote but it seemed very apt. She was undecided about John Locke, as she liked his ideas of social contract but not his slave owning. Like most Enlightenment philosophers, he was a dichotomy to modern readers.

"I see." Minerva inspected the Slytherin siblings and wondered if Albus would give her a straight answer if she asked him whether he thought they'd come to Hogwarts to recruit for the Death Eaters. She'd looked up the Varinens, who came from Karelia. The Dolohovs came from St Petersburg, well within Apparation distance. The families would certainly be acquainted. It could be a coincidence but she mistrusted serendipity. If she had better contacts at Durmstrang she could've asked if the twins had studied there. Having already completed their seven years would account for their competence.

"May we go, Professor?" Hermione asked and did not dally when given permission. The Varinens did not linger in the hallway. They left at as brisk a casual stroll as they could manage, neither convinced the conversation had gone in their favour.

They headed towards the dungeons to see if Slughorn was in. Hermione hoped he was, though if he wasn't available, there were other things they could do. As they had a free period next they could perform the purification rite then begin their meditations to become Animagi, while being out of sight of suspicious teachers. Well out of sight as Professor McGonagall wouldn't let her suspicions gather dust.

They were outside the Great Hall when a familiar blonde First Year approached them. She seemed worried again, her brows creased and she looked over her shoulder before she spoke.

"I'm sorry but I think I should tell you someone was asking about you." Idra said softly, her eyes on the ceiling as though something above had caught her attention. She spoke quickly then glanced at them. Theo turned his head away, mutely indicating she should follow.

The Varinens slipped down a side-corridor and waited. Idra was canny enough not to rush after them, though she did peek over her shoulder again when she walked into the corridor.

"It's better to assume someone is following you than to look behind. People notice if you're wary." Hermione advised, having been chased more than coursing hare.

"Oh. Thank you." The girl took a gulp of air. "You were nice to me and I didn't like how she spoke to me. Like I was a simpleton." Idra explained, her gaze roving from Theo to Hermione seeking approval. They both nodded, absolving her from telling tales. "Miss Gupta, the Sixth Year Prefect. She asked me what you'd said to me."

"Just Gupta?" Theo swallowed a sigh. He was fairly sure Avery and Mulciber were keeping an eye on them. Snape certainly was. And the Marauders. Why not the watchful Ravenclaw too?

"Yes, just her." Idra attested. "I told her you gave me directions then she asked me if I knew you, if our families were close. I said they weren't. Then she left." She paused and seeing the Sixth Years were giving her time to finish, she added. "I don't think she believed me."

"I expect she was dubious of our courtesy." Theo smirked. In the library, Gupta had studied them more than the Arithmancy work. "We are much obliged, Miss Deverill."

"If she asks me if I told you, what should I say?" The young Ravenclaw bit her lip, unsure now if this was gossiping. Her father always warned her about having a long tongue. She tried not to and her certainty she was doing the right thing was warring with her loyalty to her House.

"I think you should use your own judgement." Hermione encouraged her. She didn't want to put Idra in the middle of their mess, regardless of the girl's future political affiliation.

"I will." Idra averred. Theo sent her on her way with that lazy pure-blood hand wave Hermione was really starting to dislike. Her irritation with the gesture was nothing to her frustration with another person spying on them.

"It's so nice to be popular." She muttered. "What do you think Gupta thinks we've done?"

"Something sinister." He spoke obliquely, with a nod to her left arm.


	20. Bavardage

Slughorn didn't even ask why they wanted a pass to the Restricted Section. He signed the paper and invited them to the Slug Club, which they felt obliged to accept. Sourly, in Theo's case. The library was a welcome sanctuary from politics.

The Varinens began their search of the dangerous books respectfully. Hermione had a very good idea of the arrangement of the collection from many past forays and Theo was much the same. They made a careful sweep of the appropriate sections then withdrew three books; two on alchemy and one on translocation magic.

The alchemy books were for obfuscation, which was just as well as the recipes contained therein were rather visceral. Hermione flicked through what she was going to call 101 Uses for Entrails then set it aside.

Leichhardt's Musings on the Seven League Stride had an entire chapter of original discussion on temporal magic, not the regurgitated pap authorised by the Ministry. Hermione made extensive notes as Theo worked through his Muggle Studies homework. Then they swapped, hoping that by comparing their differing notes they would find something helpful.

The three books went back and three more books came out; again two tomes for camouflage. They repeated the process until lunch before packing everything away having previously agreed not to check out any Restricted literature.

Hermione stared at the sausages in thick sauce and shook her head. After the ingredients cited in the alchemy books, she had no appetite for intestines stuffed with meat. She helped herself to the roast potatoes and smiled when she saw Theo do the same.

"It'd be different if we'd found something useful but how many ways does anyone need to know to disembowel someone?" He complained, opting for salad until he could get out of his mind the preparation chapters helpfully included.

"I counted sixteen, including the ones 'inefficacious for the preservation of the viscera'." Hermione shook her head then weathered a look from Berengaria Yaxley.

"Must you? At the table?" She asked in a huff, her button nose crinkling.

"Did you know that if you poison someone with just the right dose of a desiccant you can cause the pressure from the displaced fluid to rupture the peritoneal cavity?" Theo asked pleasantly, looking at the girl's stomach with an assessing smile. "They'll pop."

Yaxley pushed her plate away and left the table, which neatly paid her back for her comment they'd overheard in the hall. It hadn't been directed at them but at one of the Third Years, a half-blood from a poor family. Hermione had refused to ignore the jibe and Theo had agreed to help discomfit the snobbish bitch.

Under the table, Hermione squeezed Theo's hand. He squeezed back, said nothing and kept his Slytherin mask in place. He emphatically did not grin conspiratorially at her. He was pleased to see any leonine urge to skite was similarly absent from her composed face. They ate salad in perfect accord.

Ancient Studies was fascinating. The Varinens were two lily-pads in a lake of blue but everyone uniformly took notes and listened to the dusty witch lecturing. Professor Javad, who had both a Mastership in Ancient Studies and a Doctorate in Archeology, had chain Apparated from Tehran just to teach them. No one wanted to waste her time.

She started with cuneiform and the Sumerian origins of Transfiguration magic, demonstrating this by dropping a four thousand year old tablet onto the floor. It didn't shatter. Instead it deformed like wet clay on impact. When the Professor picked up the tablet, it slowly reformed into its original oblong shape.

Theo wrote almost solidly for the duration of the double class and when they packed up after an intriguing demonstration of the evolution of Egyptian wards, he could barely feel his fingers. Hermione massaged her hand in sympathy, bouncing on her toes in anticipation of heading to the library to begin choosing their research assignment.

They were both distracted so they walked past Remus Lupin and Sirius Black in the hallway with barely a glance. Both Gryffindors seemed unusually interested in a doorway. It was only when they turned a corner to see James Potter carefully measuring the width of the corridor that Hermione realised they were in serious trouble.

The 'twins' went to their nook beyond the Runes books, cast several spells to protect against eavesdropping and surveillance then Hermione treated Theo to an impressive display of profanity. When she wound down a little, she explained why she was so upset with herself.

"I forgot about the bloody map!" Hermione could've hexed herself. She'd never been sure when the Marauders' had made their so useful chart but given how often Harry had used the damn thing, it should've been uppermost on her list of problems. "That's what they were doing. They're making it now!"

Theo waited patiently for more information. Once the witch had vented her self-recriminations, she told him what she was ranting about. The Marauders' Map, which showed where everyone was within Hogwarts. And displayed them by their real names.

"The map is a bit hazy on Animagi. That's probably why the twins didn't notice there was a man in their little brother's bed." She had then to explain about Scabbers, which caused Theo to laugh. Hermione felt a smile quirk her lips. "But we will definitely show up under our actual names."

"Shite." Theo allowed himself one obscenity, not wanting to develop a habit. "Well, that gives us an end date. We cannot stay in the castle as our real selves." They were not going to explain to anyone why a Nott and a Granger... a Lestrange were pretending to be foreigners in their own country. "How long do we have?"

"I don't know. The four of them would've spent most of last year becoming Animagi, likely with a lot of false starts. That easily could've eaten all their spare in their OWL year." Hermione pushed herself to be rational. She'd had her little outburst, now it was time to get down to brass tacks. "They'll throw themselves into now. They think we're with Tom. They will find time. We may have to leave permanently at the winter break."

"We can stay with the Varinens." That would at least minimise the number of paradoxes they could cause. Assuming the future hadn't simply been unmade by their travel. More research. More data. Less panicking. "We can transfer to Durmstrang. Even if we do need to return here so we can leave at the site of our arrival, we can be stealthy."

"Right." She nodded. "Best polish up our Finnish, then." Hermione paused then chuckled at her own pun, happy to laugh at anything right now.

Because they were both methodical thinkers, they made a list of everything they wanted to complete before they had to leave. As well as a contingency plan to get out quickly if the Marauders finished their map before Yule.

To clear their heads, they took their purification incense to the Room of Requirement and performed the cleansing ritual. Although the herbal smoke was soothing and an hour's meditation helped settle his thoughts, Theo couldn't say he felt less tainted by the Mark on his arm. He did feel lightened by the presence of the woman at his side.

They changed before dinner rather than treat their dining companions to camphor and fragrant sage. Hermione had the dorm to herself, which was unremarkable, except for the general tidiness. Four teenage girls, herself included, were bound to leave some sort of clutter somewhere.

She considered the four beds and the pervading air of guilelessness. Hermione started casting the array of spells she considered her anti-prank arsenal. Nothing registered, though there was a broken warding on Berengaria Yaxley's trunk.

First instinct was to simply ignore it. Second instinct was to repair it. Hermione considered what she knew of Slytherins, the Yaxley family and the vindictiveness of young women. She searched her bed and trunk, and found neatly hidden in a niche in the pelmet a small jewellery case.

Using spells developed to handle Horcruxes, Hermione examined the case. It also had a broken ward and contained upon careful examination a locket inscribed with the initials BDY. Conveniently labelled in case of theft, she mused acidly.

The Gryffindor thing to do would be to protest, take the evidence to her Head of House and loudly proclaim her innocence. Instead Hermione locked the dormitory door, duplicated the case with an added hex, replaced the original in Berengaria's trunk after repairing both security wards and returned the copy to where she had found it in her canopy. Then she changed for dinner.

On the way to the Great Hall, Hermione told Theo what she had found. He shrugged. It was an old trick but she had handled it correctly. All that was left was to allow the trap to close then feign ignorance.

Dinner was roast beef and vegetables with an armada of sauce boats. Hermione distracted herself from looking at the other Slytherin girls by paying attention to her table manners. Her parents had been sticklers on that score. They'd even owned snail tongs. She smiled a little wistfully at the memory of their holiday in France before the world had turned dark.

When she and Theo were back where they should be, she'd go to Marseilles again and eat bouillabaisse then maybe bicycle through the lavender fields. Provence was lovely in the summer. And perhaps if their friendship didn't suddenly dissolve when they were in their own time, she might invite Theo. Because he was quiet and she needed quiet.

Hermione did not get quiet when they returned to the Slytherin Common Room. They had lingered over dinner, giving Yaxley time to set her scene. She had another of those unreal conversations with Rosier about food, chatting about the crème caramels they'd had for dessert as though he wouldn't turn into a bloodthirsty murderer.

He walked with them to the dungeons, arguing affably about cheese and whether it was a travesty to serve Camembert hot. They strolled through the hidden door to see Berengaria Yaxley in picturesque tears being comforted by Zinnia Kneen. Delilah Greengrass was on the sofa nearest the door, looking effortlessly languid, and batted a hand at the Varinens.

"Yaxley has misplaced a bit of jewellery." Was there a hint of amusement in the Seventh Year's voice? Hermione couldn't be sure.

"The locket my grandmother gave me!" Berengaria was not so vulgar as to wail. She gasped, her breath hitching on a sob she was trying to hide behind a lace handkerchief. The performance was masterful.

"She should be more careful of her things." Theo drawled.

"Has she checked the dorm? When did she last wear it?" Hermione asked, disinterested but trying to be practical. Well, feigning both and trying not to frown at the girl, who was reminding her more of Lavender by the minute.

"Will you help me look?" The question was half-demand, half-plea and Hermione happily refused.

"I have better things to do." She looked to Greengrass, who waved her away. The Varinens took their places in the reading corner, not watching as Yaxley took her bruised feelings and her probable conspirator to their dorm.

"A few minutes." Theo estimated quietly, pulling out a Divination text. The subject was significantly dependant on practical lessons so the theory wasn't lengthy. It bogged down on esoterica but he and Hermione were almost caught up. Enough anyway to begin the year. He might even consider taking Divination as a NEWT, assuming it could be done in a well ventilated classroom.

About ten minutes later, Yaxley evidently wanting a plausible delay to pretend she had searched the dorm, there was a loud yelp of surprise. Hermione smiled at her textbook. Fred and George had some of the best jinxes.

"What did you do?" Keeping his voice low and his eyes on his book, Theo also hid a smile. Hermione's mouth was curving up at the corners like a cat's, all smug pleasure and mischief.

"Adapted the ton-tongue toffee." She murmured. The Weasley twins' modified Engorgement Charm had fewer side effects but it was harder to reverse than the standard charm. The abrupt yelp suggested that Berengaria had tried to open the copied jewellery case and had succumbed.

"We seem to be terrible at going unnoticed." Theo remarked under his breath as Kneen whisked Yaxley, with her distended tongue already reaching to her knees, away to the Hospital Wing.

"I rather hope that lark is done." Delilah Greengrass wafted over to them and perched on the arm of Theo's chair. She didn't even crease her long skirt, Hermione saw and might have envied the easy grace except she guessed it wasn't easy at all.

"Who can say? If Yaxley was incompetent enough to misplace her precious locket, who knows what else she might do?" Theo closed his book to convey to the Prefect he was paying attention however casual she was trying to be.

"I know this must be tedious for you but you really should play the game." Her voice was light and sweet, her smile brightening her eyes with a fond look. Hermione was impressed. Sceptical but impressed. Delilah Greengrass was living up to her namesake. If she touched Theo's hair, the Muggle-born witch was going to hex her. For sensible reasons, of course.

"However well-connected Yaxley may be, she's ill-disciplined. I expect by now her family treats her requests like a child's whining for sweets." He didn't know the petulant girl well but he had met so many pure-bloods like her. Their heritage was a gift from Merlin they neglected. They didn't strive.

"You are unkind." Greengrass pouted then stood, not stepping on the hem of her long skirt. Hermione wondered who she married. She felt vaguely sorry for the man. He'd have no chance.

The Varinens watched the Prefect drift away then met each other's eyes. If they'd passed some test it wasn't obvious. They stayed where they were, reading late into the evening.

Kneen returned to the dorm but Yaxley spent the night in the Hospital Wing, saving Hermione from a confrontation. However, she still warded her bed and trunk.

Neither of the Slytherin girls were so intent on reprisal that they wanted to get up early. Hermione bathed and dressed without interruption, leaving the room quietly. She was glad she'd been sorted into Gryffindor. However petty Lavender and Parvati had been, they'd never resorted to dirty tricks.

Theo was already in the Common Room, staring out a window at the dim water trying to follow the tiny glimmers of the fish. He kissed her cheek in greeting and she was distracted enough by his expression she didn't comment on the affection.

"You're worried." Hermione studied his face. He looked alright, except for the tightness at the corners of his eyes. "About Divination this morning?"

"I am hoping the renowned Seer teaching our class does not have a flair for dramatic revelations." The dismal lethargy that had settled on him that morning had been partly spawned by worry they'd be stuck in the past, doomed to repeat two wars. He'd reviewed his notes on time travel before falling asleep and they'd made for disheartening reading.

"There is nothing we can do about it." She didn't find her own words reassuring so she tried again. "Let's be minimalist and passive and allow Fate to blow us where it will."

"It's too early for philosophy." Theo smirked. The ethos she suggested was so unlike Hermione the incongruity was amusing. "And you don't believe it in any case."

"No, but blind optimism has got me through many awful things. I heartily recommend it." Grinning insouciantly, she hooked an arm in his and dragged him out of the dungeon, up to one of the arcades where they could see the dawn rising pink above the mountains. "Hope springeth eternal, positive thoughts and you probably need some vitamin D."

"What does 'vittamindy' do?" He asked, breathing deeply as though the crisp air would clear the fog in his head.

"It helps in the absorption of calcium and other minerals. Good for bone health. Most animals synthesise it from the sun." Hermione reiterated her mother's speech on why she needed to play outside and not lurk in her room reading all day. "Plus sunlight stabilises moods. Apparently. Fresh air always worked better for me."

"You extol the breeze and yet won't fly on a broom." Theo teased, feeling better. He wondered if she were correct about the light. Few Slytherins were jaunty.

"I like good ventilation. I don't like having only a twig between me and certain splat." She had her hands on her hips, her usual stance when resisting the urging of friends to try flying. Hermione thought that she had given flinging herself through the ether on housekeeping equipment enough of a chance.

"You could make an elemental ring. If you bind air, you'll be able to use it to slow your fall." He suggested then continued at her blank look. "It's old manorial magic, usually tied to the signet ring. It's not taught nowadays but if you find a book on heraldic spells, there should be a chapter on binding."

"The only binding magic I've read about has been coercive as in spellbind." Hermione frowned. The Ministry had banned most spells of that type. Then the wordplay drifted together in her mind. "Or is it one of the Old English translation hiccups like when the tomes use mind and mound the same way as bind and bound?"

"And bond, band, banned and manned? I'm afraid so, yes." Any Anglophone who had ever tried to read centuries old books confident that because they were written in English they'd be intelligible would understand their irritation. "And that's ignoring the spelling mistakes."

"I know. I would've thought magical folk would have a better grasp on basic literacy." She shook her head. In one book she had counted seven different ways the same author had spelled 'rune'. "Heraldic magic?"

"Archaic now with the better Shield charms but a lot of old school wizards still use variants. The spells are very stable." Theo endorsed the practise then paused, realising he had just told a Muggle-born about a very private tradition amongst the landed families, without any thought of her lower birth. He would have to think about that.

They went to the library so he could help her find references. It would've been much simpler if he'd had access to the Nott collection but Hogwarts did have some obviously neglected books on the subject.

Hermione spent a merry hour educating herself on chatelaine and seal magic while Theo brooded on his own forgetfulness. He could accept that he admired her, that he thought affectionately of her. A clever and kind witch with whom he had much in common. But he should have remembered she came from nothing. It should have stuck more. It mattered.

He watched her read as the creeping realisation that it did not in fact matter sunk in. His father was in Azkaban. His mother was dead. He was the last Nott. He could do anything he liked with his House. He could, if this was more than a passing infatuation, invite her in. Into his House.

When their stomachs started to demand attention, they went to breakfast. Hermione reviewed her notes as she ate. Theo kept an eye on the owls, laden with gifts from parents after the shopping opportunities of the weekend. One of the Hufflepuff First Years ended up with a toy badger almost as big as he was that took three owls to deliver.

A Great Grey owl landed at his elbow and dropped without ceremony a black trimmed envelope. A pool of silence spread across the Slytherin table as the students nearby recognised the significance of the letter. Theo picked it up, gave his half-eaten breakfast to the owl then showed Hermione the envelope. She put her notes away and quietly followed him out of the Great Hall.


	21. Bereave

They went to the Room of Requirement and asked for privacy. They got a characterless suite furnished with a dark couch and coffee table. With a few magazines and a reception desk it could've been a waiting room at a dental clinic.

"This is a death notice." Theo held up the letter then sat on the sofa and stared at the envelope.

"How Victorian." Hermione didn't have anything else to say. She was ready to provide sympathy or strategy as required but until he did something, she didn't know how to react. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Ritualised mourning. Everything was codified, down to the ribbon put on the door knocker."

"Muggles don't observe mourning any more?" He didn't want to open the letter. It was foolish. He could guess his adopted father had written to inform Orpheus of his grandfather's death. While he hadn't been watching for it, the news was not a surprise.

"Some cultures do but most English people shy away from public grieving. It's seen as ostentatious." She remembered Colin's funeral. Mr and Mrs Creevey had thanked them for attending then everyone had gone away quietly. "We talk about sex. We don't talk about death."

"Wizarding folk are the opposite. Sex is a sacred mystery and death is just a door." Theo opened the letter. It was as he had expected brief. He read it then handed it to Hermione.

The letter was shockingly terse. Four sentences. Henrik Ilmarinen Varinen, Head of the House of Varinen, informs his son, Orpheus Theodore Varinen, of the death of Katejan Pyry Varinen. The internment will be by ancient rite. Attendance is not required. Remain at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to observe mourning.

"Ancient rite? And he doesn't want you to come home for the funeral?" Hermione gave the letter back. It could've been a telegram for all the warmth it contained.

"I expect the covenant has necessary rituals." He didn't feel anything except old resentment. The Varinens had ignored his mother. They hadn't even sent an elf to act as attendant at her funeral. "He'll probably be cremated on a pyre in the forest. Or he could be bled then buried. Old magic. Possibly illegal, depending on the Finnish Ministry's stance on blood rites."

"You're the heir. Surely you should be there. Henrik adopted you." She put a hand on his. Theo patted it absently.

"Not if they're desperate to present the Horned God with a suitable candidate. Keeping me here, surrounded by young people, keeps us infused with innocent magic. Spring, not winter." Theo wondered what else the family had tried to get a son, and what they had done with their failures.

"I'll read up on pagan religious practices." Hermione made a mental note to brush up on her green magic so she didn't sound like a townie when they were presented to Nyyrikki.

"He'll want us to have sex." The words came out before he could stop them, following his thoughts like a poltergeist. Theo closed his eyes and reminded himself that despite the evidence of the last minute, he was a Slytherin and therefore should be able to talk himself out of that gaffe. "I'm sorry. That was rude."

"But probably accurate. Horny god and all." She wished she had something to fidget with and a tea tray suddenly appeared on the coffee table. Hermione frowned at the crockery. "What, no cake?"

A plate of petits fours materialised.

"Has magic ever seemed like a sightly batty aunt to you?" Hermione asked peevishly. "You know, the one with too many doilies who insists on correcting your grammar and makes racist comments you can't quite call her out on?"

"It will now." Theo curled his fingers around hers. "I am sorry. About the Varinens. I'll see to it no one forces you into anything." He would keep his promise and fulfil the covenant but he absolutely would not drag her into it with him.

"Honestly, I'd like to see them try." She wasn't being boastful. War had taught her the measure of her own strength. She would never go quietly or bow meekly to authority. "I'll help you as far as I can with the covenant. If that isn't enough, we'll just have to improvise. Nyyrikki might be as desperate as the Varinens. If he is, we could negotiate a compromise."

Theo nodded assent. Bargaining with fey was chancy but he would rather take that risk than remain in the past. In furtherance of getting back to their future, they took tea and decided on how sad they should appear to be.

The 'twins' opted to be solemn and plain. If they kept to their uniform with robes rather than casual clothes and covered their hair, that would be enough. Neither wore much jewellery so eschewing it would be easy. They would go to Slughorn to request permission to dine privately, as the evening meal was seen as a social occasion unlike the often skipped breakfast and family luncheon.

Slughorn offered them his own parlour and expressed his sympathies after assuring Orpheus and Ophelia he would assist their observance of the traditional praxis. Theo and Hermione both got the impression he enjoyed seeing them keep to the old ways as it reflected well on him.

The Professor also excused them from their classes that day, a reprieve they used to squirrel themselves away in the Restricted Section after a diversion to the dungeons. Hermione felt like a nun clad from neck to ankle with her hair covered by a black headscarf. She was unnerved by the way the gazes of some students slid off her.

"Pure-bloods." Theo murmured. "They know what's expected of someone in mourning." He had clipped his hair short and wore a pointed cap, headwear that had formerly been the standard 'at home' attire for respectable wizards.

"So we've ceased to exist for a month?" Hermione was in two minds about such anonymity. It would definitely be an asset in Slytherin as the students most affiliated with the Death Eaters were also the most conservative. Not having to interact with them would be a relief. But being a non-person to everyone else might send her dotty.

"Only to the traditionalists. Many half-bloods will be polite but not all, and I doubt any of the Muggle-borns will understand." There were ways to fend off the inquisitive.

"No eye contact and polite refusals, I'll remember." She murmured as she turned a whole chapter in a very dull book on aqua regia that was not enlivened by the author's semi-coherent rambling. Hermione diagnosed an over-exposure to mercury fumes.

They broke for lunch, eaten in silence, then returned to the library. Hermione caught a few whispered queries between students at other tables about the drab garb but no one asked them a direct question. The Varinens returned to their studies unaccosted.

Theo spent the afternoon chasing down a reliable means of travelling between two fixed points, learning more about the theory being Apparition than he considered he needed. Hermione did the same with geomancy so they could work the location of their arrival into Arithmantic equations. The wizarding approach of near enough is good enough if you arrive with all your limbs wouldn't work across time.

"Penmanship was clearly an elective at this witch's school." Theo used an amanuensis spell to copy a smudged page then held the clean parchment up to the light. As he shifted, he happened to notice Idra Deverill slip back behind a bookcase. Lowering his arms, he resumed his seat and waited.

The young Ravenclaw peeked around then seeing they were both occupied, crept forward to leave a small white wrapped box on the table.

"My condolences." She said quietly to the books stacked in front of the Varinens before scurrying off. Theo put the box carefully in his bag. Hermione wrote a question mark on his copied parchment. He wrote 'gift of food for the bereaved, very appropriate' in reply.

They worked until dinner then went sombrely to Professor Slughorn's parlour. He had evidently told the elves, who had found a set of mourning dinnerware. The 'twins' ate bland food off black trimmed plates and drank water from frosted glasses. No lustre, no ornament. It was restful.

The Slytherin Common Room was crowded and voluble when they arrived. There'd been some sort of incident at dinner that evening, about which the Varinens did not inquire. They moved through the throng towards their usual armchairs.

Hermione sensed a rush of magic as soon as she touched the velvet upholstery. It wasn't an offensive spell so her Shield Charm didn't activate. It was also very quick. The charm manifested before she had time to draw her wand.

Though drawing it afterwards was much easier as she didn't have a robe to get in the way. Or sleeves. Or indeed a stitch of clothing. Hermione noted she was completely naked at the same moment she deduced the spell had been a modified wardrobe charm, used by the fussy to store their clothes without undo wear. Very good for spider silk gowns.

The important thing right now was not to flinch. Modified meant there would be a trace from the wand-work. Hermione had a fairly shrewd idea who was responsible for this little prank, which did not bother her. No, she was not embarrassed. She had spent a year in a tent with two teenage boys. The niceties of attire had somewhat fallen by the wayside. They had discovered exactly how many times you could Scourigy underpants before they disintegrated.

Keep that thought in your head. This was fine. This was a bit of a laugh and if Harry and Ron were here they'd be sniggering even as they tracked the owner of the wand with that handy spell Moody had shown them. Death Eaters left traces of themselves, everyone with a wand did, and being able to see those ephemeral touches could save your life.

Or give you someone to revenge upon as you stood in your Common Room in your birthday suit.

Hermione thought all of that in a flash, in a rush of adrenalin as she cast Moody's detection charm. A green glow suffused the chair then drifted into the crowd. Students hastily moved aside uncertain of the effect as what she thought of as magical Luminol lit the way right to Berengaria Yaxley.

Theo hastily shrugged off his robes, draping them over Hermione to hide her nakedness. She didn't seem to have noticed. He didn't recognise the first spell she cast though the second one was immediately obvious.

"Expelliarmus." Hermione snapped as soon as her spell confirmed the perpetrator. Yaxley's wand went flying. "Petrificus Totalus." Yaxley hit the floor flat on her back.

There was a gap now around the blonde Slytherin where her Housemates had stepped away from her. No one had left. They were curious to see what happened next.

"I have an excellent sense of humour." Ophelia's voice came naturally to her as her anger and outrage stoked. "I am sure I enjoy a joke as much as the next person." Hermione looked to Theo, beside her, who smiled grimly.

"I certainly find Yaxley amusing right now." He observed as he let his wand slide into his hand. "But there is a time and a place for levity, and here today isn't it."

"Quite so." Hermione badly wanted to run to her dorm but she wouldn't retreat, not when all of Slytherin was staring at them. "We are in mourning. We need to maintain a certain decorum." She flicked her wand. "Serpensortia."

A green viper appeared on the carpet near Yaxley's head. She was quite pleased with the colour, which nearly matched the Luminol spell. It seemed appropriate. Hermione directed it towards the immobilised witch. The snake coiled over Berengaria's neck before slowly slithering onto her face.

"Mind that, will you?" Hermione handed Theo her wand and walked at a controlled pace to the Sixth Year dorm. She angrily hunted through her trunk for spare clothes, pulling them on while hissing swear words. A new scarf for her hair, a pause to tamp down her temper then she returned fully dressed to the Common Room.

Theo was amusing himself by having the viper twist itself into elaborate knots around Yaxley's unresisting limbs. They swapped his robes for her wand then Hermione dismissed the snake. Lesson learned, she hoped. The Varinens sat down to read, leaving the Full-Body Bind to dissipate naturally.

The other Slytherins dispersed as the show was over. Watching out of the corner of her eye as they slunk away, Hermione was dismayed to see no one stayed to help Yaxley. Kneen and Travers made themselves scarce, leaving their friend on the floor.

"Dessert?" Theo pulled Idra's gift from his bag and unwrapped it. Inside, carefully swathed in a napkin were two cream buns the girl had likely coaxed the elves into making for her. Hermione accepted one, eating it slowly to get it past the tension in her gut.

"Are they going to just leave her there?" She muttered behind her hand as she licked powdered sugar off her lips.

"I expect so." He didn't smile at her compassion but he wanted to. "Poor form to attack someone in mourning. She should've waited the month to get even."

There wasn't much she could say to that. Hermione sat and stewed. She should've been horrendously embarrassed the entire House had seen her naked but she just couldn't bring herself to care. After the initial out-rush of anger, it didn't seem to matter. Nothing did, really.

"I think I'll go to bed early." Hermione said after staring at the same page for ten minutes. She got up and went to her dorm, releasing Yaxley as she reached the door making it look like an afterthought.

After warding everything and forting up behind her curtains, Hermione lay awake staring at her canopy as tears trickled out of her eyes. She didn't know why she was crying. She couldn't muster the energy to care about that either. She wanted to go home but wasn't sure where that was any more.

Hermione rolled onto her side, cuddling her pillow and wished she had someone there with her. Her mum would've known how she was feeling, would've brought cocoa and sympathy. But right now her mum was a young graduate worrying about bills.

She wondered if she could sneak into the boys' dorm to bunk with Theo, and that was such a side-ways thought she stopped snivelling. Theo wasn't Harry. Theo wasn't Ron. But she'd thought of him, not her best friend and her sort of boyfriend.

That was something she needed to think about.

Was it just because he was here with her? She couldn't deny that was a factor as there was little point pining for anyone in the future. Her and Theo, and ghosts and echoes. That was all she had.

They were friends. They had a lot in common and if they'd both been in Ravenclaw on their first go around they'd likely have been sociable together. Probably not bestest chums given his father was a Death Eater but they'd have spoken probably. Studied together, certainly.

And fought on opposite sides in an uncivil war.

Hermione wondered how many of her schoolmates had taken the Dark Mark. Taken or had it inflicted upon them. Malfoy had. Theo too. She doubted Zabini would've committed to it, for all he spouted blood purity rubbish like the rest of them. Crabbe and Goyle almost certainly as they were obedient lackeys like their fathers. Of the older Slytherins she wasn't certain. The younger ones had probably escaped by virtue of Voldemort's defeat.

Which hadn't happened yet.

She was thankful the Marauders had given her a reason to leave Hogwarts. Coming back for her Eighth Year had been hard enough. Her second Sixth Year was a durance vile. Ophelia was starting to get into her head, starting to become instinctual. The sooner she was Hermione Granger again, the better.

Except she wasn't.

The rune stones were a factor, Hermione had to admit that. She never would've thought about it if she hadn't seen the crests appear. But what she was thinking about now was how well her Memory Spell had affected her parents. When she'd cast it, she been careful, thorough but as light as possible. Enough to protect them but not a neuron more.

She wanted to believe her mum and dad were in St Mungo's because someone else had Obliviated them first, probably not with the care she'd used. That was why her parents had to relearn everything when her spell had been removed. They were suffering from old trauma not new.

She really wanted to believe that, which made her suspicious of how much credit she was giving a polished rock. Blood magic was old, crude in many ways but it was rarely inaccurate. And the adoption contract had flickered blue, showing no forgery, when she'd signed it.

So, why was she lying in bed tormenting herself with doubts when she could cast a heritage charm herself and find out? Hermione sat up. Her notes on heraldic magic contained several suitable spells as wizards had historically been a bit paranoid about paternity.

She cast every last one. Propped up in bed, she methodically worked through the various charms. By the time she was done, her finger was sore from the many small cuts she'd inflicted to draw blood and she had three parchments filled with images of the same crests.

Even the complicated lineage charm that showed her ancestry for three generations, enough to confirm pure blood, had given her what she had feared to see. Hermione knew enough of the Black family tree to situate herself in it. The wives of the paternal line, Rosier then Crabbe then Bulstrode, hadn't occurred in that sequence in the last two hundred years other than for Bellatrix and her sisters. She'd been interested in how inbred the Blacks were so she'd looked at the wives in particular.

She didn't know much about the Lestrange side but from what the charms showed her, they were certainly fond of their cousins. Fortunately there didn't seem to be a prior intermarriage between the Blacks and the Lestranges so whatever genetic anomalies she'd inherited, they were unlikely to be homozygous.

Just mad hair and buck teeth and a tendency towards obsession. Hermione laughed a bit at that. Of course, there were still questions. How had Nemesia Lestrange got to the Grangers? Why hadn't Kreacher recognised her as a member of the Black family? Why wasn't she on the tapestry?

Theo had said his father was Nemesia's godfather. The likelihood that an old school Death Eater would've abandoned two comrades' pure-blood child with a pair of dentists was microscopic. No chance of Rodolphus or Bellatrix doing the same either. So, someone else had taken the baby.

She had to have been a baby because there were photographs of her coming home from hospital. An icy tendril ran down her spine. There were photos of her mum and dad with a pink wrapped bundle on the doorstep of their home. Her granddad had taken the pictures. There was no doubt the Grangers had a daughter.

Changeling.

Hermione made herself follow that thought to its logical conclusion. Assuming the blood magic spell-work she had done was correct, which it might not be, and that Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange were her biological parents, which they might not be, she wasn't the baby in the pink blanket.

There was an infinitesimal chance that a very thorough magical person had cast memory charms on her mum and dad, four grandparents, a dozen close friends and co-workers, and had faked photographs of her pregnant mother on the beach in Dover during a family holiday in the summer of 1979.

Or a magical person in a hurry had found the first couple with a baby about the right age and had swapped the infants. Leaving her with the Grangers and taking the Grangers' daughter away. And no one who cared about Nemesia Lestrange would give a damn about a newborn Muggle.


	22. Braggadocio

Hermione didn't have to feign a solemn countenance when she got up the morning of their seventh day at Hogwarts 1976. It felt much longer. She dragged herself to the bathroom, scrubbed thoroughly in the hope she'd rouse then stared in the mirror.

The young woman who looked back at her had distant, dark eyes and a Medusa's crown. She had Hermione's scar on her neck but Hermione's summer tan was already fading and Hermione's buckteeth were a hazy memory. Even the scar on her arm was wrong. The lines carved in her flesh meant something very different now.

If they got back to their own time, if they could, if it was even the same, if there was any future to get back to beyond the nebulous prospect, if. If. She took a deep breath. Today like yesterday she was Ophelia Varinen. She couldn't be Hermione Granger but she didn't have to be Nemesia Lestrange.

Ophelia was bad enough though at least people would leave her alone. Hermione got dressed in the other girl's uniform and covered her braids. She warded her clothes because while she doubted anyone would repeat Yaxley's prank, one incident of spontaneous nudity was enough. She was so tightly wound if she lost hold of her temper she feared the walls would run red.

Theo was already up. He sat in his preferred chair with the air of a man resigned to keep sitting until Doomsday. When she took her own seat, he reached across and touched her hand, hooking his index finger in hers like the links of a chain. Together, his gesture said. She shifted forward, repeating the touch to him so they sat in a small circle just the two of them.

"It's all a bit much this morning." Theo remarked and Hermione nodded concord.

"Let's find somewhere to meditate. We can start the Animagus project." She suggested, not wanting to linger in the bilious green Common Room.

The Varinens opted against using the Room of Requirement. They wanted to keep it in reserve for emergencies, and if anyone asked they could not readily explain how they had found it so soon after arriving at Hogwarts.

There were numerous discreet spots but most were known to amorous students so there would be continual interruptions. Slughorn might have obliged with his parlour though asking for another favour would put them deeper in his debt. Eventually, they settled on Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Theo was dubious about this choice but Hermione assured him that the ghost was starved for attention. All he needed to do was be kind to her, perhaps flirt a little and Myrtle would oblige by allowing them to share her demesne. If anyone asked her what the Varinens were doing, all she'd be able to tell was that they were sitting quietly with their eyes shut while burning incense.

And having an unimpeachable neutral source vouch for them would mitigate suspicions they were up to anything. Having a spectral chaperone diverted Theo enough that he put some effort into winning over Myrtle. He wasn't a natural gallant but his manners were good and Hermione was right about the maudlin ghost being lonely.

During their moon of mourning, Orpheus and Ophelia fell into a routine. Rise at six, bathe and dress soberly, meditate until eight then eat breakfast, morning classes, review in the breaks, eat lunch without conversation, afternoon classes, dinner in Slughorn's parlour, trawl the Restricted Section until the Library closed then homework in the Slytherin Common Room before retiring.

No one in green accosted them. Even Mulciber once he had been released from the infirmary left them alone. No one wanted to be seen to be as gauche as Yaxley. Indeed, several of their Housemates conveyed formal letters of condolence from their parents. Walburga Black offered to host their end-of-mourning feast, an invitation the Varinens accepted.

No one in yellow accosted them. A few of the pure-blood Hufflepuffs offered their sympathy during the mixed Care of Magical Creatures class, mostly as something to say to fill the awkward silences. Augustus Pye brought a white wrapped box from his aunt and one from himself.

No one in blue accosted them. Idra Deverill was their little shadow, tagging along with them to run errands so they wouldn't have to talk to people. The three boys who took Alchemy with them were polite and didn't try to chat. Nehal Gupta kept her distance but she watched, and she was the first to ask Myrtle about them.

Benjy Fenwick the was the first to take an active interest. A Gryffindor Fifth Year with an Auror mother, he believed James and Sirius when they insisted the Varinens were Death Eaters. Every day he waited for news his mother had been murdered by those masked bastards. He couldn't do anything to protect her. But he definitely could do something to thin the ranks.

The Varinens were always together. He had to trail them for a week to get his chance. They hung out a lot in a girl's toilet but the brother was too fancy to piss in one, so that was Benjy's chance. He noticed the sister waiting outside the boy's toilet on the second floor and ducked quickly inside.

Unfortunately for Fenwick, Theo was waiting for him. Hermione's encounter with Mulciber and subsequent punishment had made the 'twins' cautious about the manner of their retaliation. So Theo hit the unsubtle Fifth Year with a Confundus then a sleeping charm and left him tidily in one of the stalls.

The decorous isolation left the Varinens open to the usual harassment Slytherins faced from other students. After leaving three Fourth Year Lions napping quietly behind a tapestry, the 'twins' garnered the attention of another duo.

Gideon and Fabian Prewett were Seventh Years and knew a thing or two about what was really going on beyond the walls of Hogwarts. So when four Slytherins were suddenly heroes, they noticed. They had their suspicions, pretty damn solid ones, about Snape and Rosier. Their friend Frank sent regular owls about his Auror training and all the news that the Prophet was too craven to publish.

But the Varinens, showing up knowing no one and known by no one, speaking English like locals and carrying their wands like Hit wizards, were enigmas.

The Prewetts liked puzzles. The Sorting Hat had nearly put them in Ravenclaw except for a broad streak of recklessness that would've upset the serene Eagles. Poking things with a stick to see what happened did not count as rigorous intellectual evaluation. But it was certainly fun.

They hung about in the library, it was their NEWT year so no one marvelled, and watched the people watching the Varinens. Snape, Avery, that arse Mulciber and quite a few of the other Slytherins doubtless on orders from their Death Eater parents. They could all be discounted as slithering sneaky bastards who wouldn't answer any question from a Gryffindor without a curse.

But Gupta and Deverill were 'Claws and could be approached without starting a war in the stacks. Gideon and Fabian checked with Frank before making any overture towards the blue girls. They had been put on their guard by Dumbledore's non-answers when they'd asked him outright about the Varinens. A vague 'time will tell' was not satisfactory for the Prewetts.

Frank warned them away from the little blonde, who's father was rumoured to be Marked. There were a lot of rumours about who was dirty and who was simply parroting. Mad-Eye Moody had given Frank a look at his unofficial Rogue's Gallery. There was nothing solid on Deverill but him being suspect made the Varinens' relationship with the First Year interesting.

Snakes were never nice without a reason. Fabian kept an eye on their table as he hunted for a book he honestly did need to read for his Charms homework. If called out on it, he had an explanation ready.

The young Ravenclaw sat with the mourning pair at a respectful distance. The Prewett family didn't observe full mourning any more but from what Fabian knew, the Varinens were doing it about right for a grandfather. He wondered if they'd been close or whether it was all appearances.

He also wondered that about their apparent friendship with Deverill. They were patient with her, often bringing back books for her too when they slithered amongst the shelves. They didn't talk much but then neither twin were chatty even with other Slytherins.

Rumour had it, and this was from a Hufflepuff who liked to party, that there'd been some incident in the snake pit about Mulciber and Avery and the Varinens. Mulciber kept in with the Badgers because they could get the best stuff. Fabian had tried some recreational pharmaceuticals and sweet Vivian, Muggles knew how to expand their minds. And leave you drooling on the floor thinking your elbows were talking.

So the gossip source in this instance was fairly solid. And Mulciber had ended up in the Hospital Wing. Evidently the first round of being tied up behind a statue hadn't been enough. The Prewetts had laughed themselves sore when they heard the slimy git had got his comeuppance. McGonagall had warned all the lionesses to avoid Mulciber after he'd had a go at MacDonald. Their Head of House had also warned all of them not to try to settle any scores.

Fabian found the book he wanted and sauntered away, swapping places with Gideon in the Restricted Section. They were old hands at this sort of thing. They'd practised, in the beginning to drive their older sister up the wall when she was trying to be alone together with Weasley, then in earnest when the war went poisonous.

The Varinens did a lot of reading. On that point alone, they needed a Ravenclaw. The Prewetts called in a few favours for someone to vouch for them to the Sixth Year girl. Everyone was suspicious, wary even across Houses normally friendly. Their meeting had to be private.

Fortunately Gupta was a Prefect so she had more leeway with curfew, and the Prewetts didn't give a toss about getting caught out of bed. Pringle had already broken a cane over their backs. There wasn't much more the old wizard could do without giving himself a schism of the heart.

Their meeting in the Prefects' Bathroom went well. Gupta was certain the Varinens were more advanced than even obsessively home-schooled Sixth Years should be. The Prewetts shared what they safely could of what Frank had told them about the current Death Eater politics and what they'd seen the twins withdraw from the Restricted Section. They also introduced the witch to James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, because whatever was going on was bad.

It was Bertram Aubrey, the Ravenclaw who had Alchemy, Ancient Studies and Arithmancy with them, who told the Varinens of Gupta's alliance with the Gryffindors. He didn't like the Prefect sneaking around with the prankish sextet and when he'd tried to suggest she keep better company, she'd accused him of being a blood purist.

Bertram liked to think of himself as a reasonably tolerant person socially. He was a pure-blood but he found reliance on ancestry alone for magical talent a faulty premise. The incongruity of the accusation that warning his Housemate against the Prewetts, a Potter and a Black put him in the Death Eater camp, convinced him he should intervene.

The presence of one of his own House acting as attendant enabled him to communicate with the Varinens without obtruding on the mourning pair. Bertram had a quiet chat with Deverill within hearing of the Slytherin twins.

"I don't know of what the Gryffindors have convinced Miss Gupta, but I believe the logic is suspect." He wasn't well acquainted with any of the Lions but he didn't consider five pure-bloods, including four members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and one half-blood good indicators of liberal thinking.

"What did she say to you?" Idra asked, after glancing at Ophelia, who gave her a slight nod. The blonde girl sat a little straighter in her seat.

"It's no so much what she said as the implication behind it." Bertram frowned, wanting to convey his concerns without hyperbole. "She's conspiring with a group of people I consider unreliable. Most Gryffindors are merely overenthusiastic, but Potter is a bully and Black is unstable. The Prewetts are political."

He paused when both Varinens looked up at him. He was anxious to avoid the sort of charismatic override of reason in which both factions indulged. Bertram thought it unlikely the twins were mired in the British squabble. The continental Ministries were sensibly keeping their distance.

"I wouldn't have said anything but the Guptas are a respectable family and Miss Gupta is a Prefect. I don't want to see her dragged down with the pride's collective recklessness." Bertram told Deverill, who nodded. Her own opinion of Gryffidors was that they were loud and liked shoving people in the hallways.

"Thank you for your concern." Theo spoke to his book. Aubrey didn't reply. He smiled tightly at the younger Ravenclaw then strode off towards the Arithmancy section. Ophelia didn't watch him go. She added three names to the list in her notebook then put it away with a tense sigh. They returned to their reading.

Bertram Aubrey ended up in the Hospital Wing the next day with his skull twice the size it should be. James Potter and Sirius Black were seen hexing him and given a double detention.

Hermione and Theo brought Aubrey his class assignments but didn't stay to chat; a show of support not a social visit. Mourning limited their casual conversation, which was further curtailed by the mandrake leaves they were obliged to keep in their mouths.

It was the first day of the full moon in October when their mourning concluded but the Varinens continued to observe until the weekend and their end-of-mourning feast. It was crass to shed their drab at the first opportunity as though they had been counting down the hours.

Hermione had not wanted to take Walburga Black's offer. Theo had insisted almost to demanding that they must. To reject it would be a snub no society matron would tolerate, and it would attract exactly the sort of censorious attention they did not want. Good manners dictated they graciously accept the kind and generous invitation from an esteemed family.

Professor Slughorn had fallen over himself to give them and Regulus permission to leave Hogwarts for the weekend. Whether he had gone to Dumbledore for confirmation, neither Varinen asked. They got their answer they saw Sirius Black waiting for them in the Entrance Hall.

"I've been told to extend to you the hospitality of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black." His grin was leonine but Hermione saw some trepidation in his eyes. Sirius didn't want to go home. He hated it there. She did not doubt that Dumbledore had persuaded him or outright compelled him to accompany them.

"There is really no need, brother." Regulus spoke with throttled emotion, keeping his voice down in the echoing hall. Sirius ran a hand through his artfully tousled hair, his smile twisting into a smirk.

"But I'm the heir, Reggie. It's my duty." He winked at Ophelia, offering her his arm.

"I am still in mourning. I walk alone." Hermione said quietly, improvising from what she had read of the minutiae of pure-blood customs. Refusing Sirius's arm was a snub but not one she was likely to be called out upon as he had not offered in a gentlemanly manner.

They walked in brittle silence to Hogsmeade where Orion Black waited for them with a Portkey. The elder wizard was lean like his sons, still taller than both boys, and had the ingrained almost septic conceit of a blood purist. Hermione didn't meet his eyes but what she could see reminded her of Lucius Malfoy. Less of a dandy, still very very correct.

"Mister Varinen, good day." Orion's voice was clipped, his gaze coldly on his heir rather than his guests. They were being watched and it was inevitable that Sirius would try something to embarrass them.

"Good day, sir." Theo took Hermione's arm politely as he sensed their host's desire to get away quickly. "I am sorry to be so abrupt, sir, but I have no wish to be mobbed again. Last time we visited Hogsmeade, we couldn't move for adulation."

That was an exaggeration, though the residents were taking a distinct interest in the small group. Orion took the escape given him and discarded all the small talk expected before their departure. He gripped Sirius's wrist tightly, held Regulus's hand and arranged for his younger son to hold onto the Varinens. They swirled away with a stomach-clenching lurch.


	23. Boulevardier

12 Grimmauld Place looked cleaner but just as dour as Hermione remembered. When, if, she owned her own home, she would whitewash everything and put in skylights and brightening charms. Perhaps not in the library as direct sunlight damaged books but certainly in the rest of the house. And no damn portraits lining gloomy hallways, shadows of themselves in the shadows, reminding her of Dorian Grey and of the movie where one of the villains kept her spare heads in glass cabinets.

Hermione closed her eyes. The stress of being Ophelia was definitely getting to her. She flinched when someone touched her hand, recoiling towards Theo.

"I'm sorry I startled you." Regulus apologised quickly. Ophelia had gone pale and he worried she was feeling faint.

"Quite alright." Hermione took herself in hand, giving herself a mental shake. "Portkeys and I do not get along." She took a deep breath. "I am sure I shall be quite well in a moment."

"I don't blame you, Varinen. This heap makes me come over all woozy every time I see it. When it's mine, I think I'll raze it." Sirius grimaced at the heartless ancestral pile. He stomped up the steps and shoved open the front door careless of any impression of graciousness his mother wanted to show.

Hermione did not follow him. She stayed right where she was next to Theo, who turned to Orion Black and waited for their host to invite them into his home. Regulus hunched his shoulders, mortified by his brother's conduct. Even away from his Gryffindor friends, Sirius was an arse.

"This home has been in our family since the seventeenth century." Orion ignored his eldest son. This was the last time. If he couldn't keep a civil tongue on this solemn feast day then it was done. Walburga had been urging a renaissance, as she put it. "The site has been Black land since Merlin. It was fens. Traditional Slytherin country."

Orion escorted the children inside, pleased to see they comported themselves with restraint. His wife approved of the Varinens but he was not so convinced. Narcissa had made a good match with a British wizard. There might yet be hope for Regulus, despite his brother's diligent campaign to make them all look like buffoons.

One of Walburga's elves greeted them. Orion didn't bother to learn their names. They ended up with plaques on the wall if he cared to check. Sirius threw his cloak over the creature and stalked off down the hall. Orion braced himself for a comment. There were always comments. Even his old school chums remarked on his failure to discipline his elder son.

Orpheus simply picked up Sirius's cloak then gave it to the elf, allowing the creature to receive his cloak and his sister's with decorum. Ophelia looked about the entrance hall, deliberately pretending not to have noticed. Orion was relieved. Of course, both of them had to endure Sirius at Hogwarts so perhaps they had practise feigning blindness.

"Like what you see, Ophelia?" Sirius asked the witch as she seemed to be searching for something. He glanced around the hallway too trying to see if anything had changed since the summer. He'd spent most of it with James. His mother had replaced the cloak rack with an awful troll leg umbrella stand, probably some mourning protocol thing. Had Ophelia been to Grimmauld Place before?

"Yes, thank you, I do." Hermione replied politely. She couldn't tell him she was surprised the wallpaper wasn't peeling. That it had little crests worked into it, a subtle damask pattern that would completely fade with age.

"Play your cards right and it could be yours one day." He grinned at her, undressing her with his eyes. Sirius was mostly feigning. Varinen wasn't bad looking though too buttoned up for his taste, but what he really wanted was to see how her stance shifted when she was angry.

Gupta had gone on and on about kinesics and micro-expressions in typical Ravenclaw pedagogy. He'd wanted to Silencio her halfway through except she had a lot of useful things to say. Like how people who are honestly offended shift their chins up without lifting their shoulders but people who are feigning offence overcompensate and shift both.

Ophelia was faking it. She was sort of subtle about it but when she turned her nose up at him she put too much into her body language. While at the same time never quite turning her back on him. That was another little detail Gupta had noted.

It was received wisdom that Slytherins didn't trust anyone. However, watching the Snakes as he and his friends had done while tromping all over Hogwarts for the Map, Sirius saw that wasn't true. They tried to look aloof but most of them were just snooty kids. The Varinens, though, really didn't trust anyone. Not even the little Ravenclaw, who Gupta said they seemed to pity.

"Sirius." Orion said warningly as the young witch tried not to show how upset she was.

"What? That's why she's here." Sirius was prepared to lie about a lot of things. No one wanted to volunteer for detention. His father's hypocrisy left too a bad taste in his mouth. "You want to buy her. It better be for Reggie because there's no way I'm going to marry the frigid, lying cow."

He loped off to the dining room, not because he was retreating but to get another good look at the Varinens. Sirius barged past them making himself a deliberate target. Neither of them twitched. Which was pretty bloody interesting considering if he'd said the same thing about any of his Housemates' sisters he'd be spitting up slugs.

He wasn't sure what that meant. Which was the big drawback with Gupta's theories. Lots of things to see meant lots of things to misinterpret.

He'd talk it over with the Prewetts, who were big on strategy, then decide whether no flinching meant the Varinens didn't care if he knew they were liars or if they were prepared to overlook the insult because they were desperate for an alliance with the Blacks. This spying lark was already giving him a headache. He would much rather be with Moony in the Shack.

"If you will excuse me, I will inform my wife we have arrived." That was a blatant excuse as Orion could easily have sent an elf but the need to tidy his House pressed upon him. "Regulus, see to our guests."

"Of course, father." The boy straightened, guiding the Varinens down the hall where he could show off the family portraits and buy his father time to beat some sense into Sirius.

Orion strode into the dining room and found his heir broaching the liquor cabinet. He locked the doors then cast a silencing charm. This past summer had been excruciating. Lestrange had openly refused an invitation to dine and Greengrass had withdrawn an understanding, citing the age difference between Sirius and Delilah. The barely two year gap was a feeble cover. Orion understood clearly his platitudes about a more mature husband for his daughter.

In the hallway, they heard nothing but the click of the door latches. Regulus allowed himself a steadying breath. His parents were strict. He had been punished but he had learned his lessons. Sirius wilfully refused to heed. His brother had less than a month before his seventeenth birthday. He had been given grace enough.

"If we are intruding on private matters, we will leave." Theo had been briefed by Hermione about the disowning and defection of the Black heir. She had the vague impression it had happened during the summer as Sirius had said he had run away to the Potters at sixteen and absconding during school holidays made sense. She'd heard it secondhand from Harry, and after Sirius's death her friend had been reluctant to talk about his godfather. Evidently the event occurred later, just before Black came of age.

"Please, don't." Regulus fought not to sound wretched. "He ruins everything. He's my brother and I... but I hate him too. He's brought this on himself."

"Why don't you show us the library? We'll be out of the way there." Hermione suggested, not hugging the boy despite a sympathetic urge to do so. Regulus nodded and turned crisply on his heel to tuck them quietly away out of sight of any drama.

But when they got there the library door was locked and there was a dark, sticky line on the carpet from the dining room. Regulus stopped, staring at the blood trail. Theo caught his sleeve and towed him away, following Hermione as she led them up the stairs to the drawing room.

They met Walburga on the top step. Her face was pinched white with high spots of colour on her cheekbones. She had her wand out and was too angry to credibly hide it. The older witch looked so much like her niece that Hermione was instantly on her guard. Theo felt her magic heighten, a thrum of energy that rushed through him like arousal.

"Regulus has boasted of your family tapestry, Madam." Theo found himself talking, grateful that his self-preservation instincts had moved his tongue before his lagging wits caught up. "He was kind enough to offer to show it to us, if it isn't an imposition."

"Thoughtful boy." Walburga murmured, perhaps to her son, perhaps to Orpheus. "Please do. Take all the time you need." She brushed past them, eyes so wide they could see the whites all around her grey irises.

They did not linger on the landing. Hermione shut the drawing room door feeling like a coward. Sirius was downstairs outnumbered. His parents wouldn't kill him. Or at least, they didn't manage to kill him in the future. If there was a future. If she could be certain of anything.

"He's my brother." Regulus started to shake. He knew his parents could be volatile. His mother particularly. All of Pollux's children were highly strung though that could be because their father had been poorly disciplined and over-indulged. His shamefully early marriage to the Crabbe girl an indication of his lack of self-control.

"You cannot defy your parents." Theo tried to console the younger boy while keeping an eye on Hermione. She was plotting.

"He can't. We can." Hermione strode over to Regulus, looking him at him directly. They didn't have much time. They never did. "One word, Regulus. That's all you have to say. We can help your brother but we can't explain. Yes or no?"

"Yes!" Regulus answered firmly.

"You tell Orpheus all about the tapestry while I powder my nose." She slipped out of the drawing room, hurrying to the toilet at the end of the hall. Shutting the door, she pulled out her wand and cast a slicing hex to cut her finger enough to bleed on the tiles. Pure blood. "Kreacher!"

The elf appeared at her summons. He was still leathery with droopy ears but didn't look half-starved or three-quarters crazy. His milky blue eyes narrowed at her, his gaze dropping to the red pool on the floor.

"I am Nemesia Lestrange, daughter of Bellatrix Black. You know this is true, however implausible it sounds." Hermione spoke quickly, not at all sure Kreacher would help her.

"Elf magic brought you from there to here." Kreacher squinted up at her, torn between joy at welcoming a new Black and misgiving at why the young Mistress had come.

"That's not important right now." She took all her surprise, all her questions and stuffed them in a box for later. "You need to fetch a Potter elf. Dorea Black is Madam Potter so I know you can go to her. You need to let the elf in to take Sirius away. Regulus does not want his brother hurt."

"Master Sirius is a blood traitor! Master Sirius is a very bad boy!" The elf hissed, yanking his ears to punish himself for speaking ill of a Black.

"I know. But if he dies here, his ghost will never leave. He will forever disgrace the House of Black. Do this for the family, Keacher." Hermione tried to persuade him so her inevitable order didn't twist him like his failure to obey Regulus's last command had. "I order you to get a Potter elf to take the filth away."

"Yes, Mistress." Kreacher Apparated away. Hermione healed her hand and cleaned up the blood and crossed her fingers. She slipped back into the drawing room.

Regulus didn't ask if what she had done had worked. He continued to expound on the crafting methods used to make and update the tapestry, evidently a pet subject of his. Hermione took up station beside Theo, her eyes straying to Bellatrix's name and the blank space beneath. A sigh of relief had just escaped her lips when a door banged downstairs and something smashed.

When Walburga began screeching, Hermione smiled. The outcry stopped abruptly cut off by a Silencio. The trio in the drawing room made awkward conversation about trivialities while they waited to be fetched.

It was Orion who came for them. He was perfectly tidy, not a stitch out of place. He took them to the dining room, which was also perfect. Not a smudge or bit of broken glass or blood remained, though Hermione noticed one of the decanters was missing from the Tantalus.

Their hostess entered with a platter of bread and salt, traditional food for crossing the threshold and breaking fast. Theo and Hermione took one piece of bread each but refused the salt as in their grief food had no savour.

Walburga put the platter down on the unset dining table. She gave them a glass each, offering wine first then at their ritual refusal gave them water. The 'twins' took a pinch of salt to add to their drink to symbolise their shed tears.

They all sat at the bare table. A house elf put an plate before each of them and one before an unoccupied chair, demonstrating the shared sadness and emptiness. Hermione's gaze strayed to the liquor cabinet as an elf unobtrusively replaced the missing decanter. While magic could repair many things, crystal shattered and was not amenable to mending.

"Please let us ease your sorrow. Eat with us." Walburga invited. Her husband and son repeated the request. Theo took a deep breath.

"My grandfather has gone beyond the Veil. He hungers no more. I linger, and I will eat with you who share your feast in kindness." He spoke the words he had last said for his mother, when he and his father had ended their mourning with the Malfoys. Theo uncovered his hair.

"My grandfather has gone beyond the Veil. He hungers no more. I linger, and I will eat with you who share your feast in kindness." Hermione said what she was supposed to say then pulled off her headscarf, tucking it away in a pocket and suppressing the feeling she had just blasphemed.

With a snap of her fingers, Walburga summoned the food and drink. A consummate hostess, she began with light dishes to ease her guests out of their bland diet. They drank lemonade with the first course of vegetable soup then gradually progressed to the richer food wizarding folk preferred. Given magic could only duplicate food, not create it, meals were one of the most ostentatious ways to flaunt wealth.

Hermione didn't have much appetite. She was worried about Sirius. Dorea and Charlus Potter had taken him in without a cavil and he'd been much happier. But facing a recently dispossessed Black at Hogwarts while being so clearly on the opposite side would not be fun. She couldn't even ask him if he was okay without him taking it as a jibe.

"Were you close to your grandfather, Miss Varinen?" Walburga asked, noting her lack of enthusiasm for her meal.

"He was a very private person, Madam Black." Hermione and Theo had sketched out what they should say about their family if anyone asked. Their reticence would've given her the impression the Varinens were eccentric hermits waiting with wands drawn to transfigure interlopers. However 'private' was evidently pure-blood short-hand for 'better than you'.

"I understand there was some difficulty at Hogwarts concerning your observances." Orion spoke, wanting to test the Varinens more on their political allegiances before he allowed Regulus to approach the girl. Normally he would have written to Ophelia's father but his pride was still stinging from Greengrass's rejection. Better to proceed slowly.

"Yaxley has no manners." Theo commented, aware he was damning the girl socially. They'd discussed their stance on the prank but it was been too public for them to ignore it, and as Berengaria had married into the Browns, who weren't a prestigious family, perhaps she'd already made herself a reputation for crassness.

"We have reconsidered our attendance to her family's Samhain ball." Walburga spoke airily, concealing her pleasure at getting out of the obligation. The Yaxleys were Sacred Twenty-Eight, and the cadet lines were sound but the lineal heirs were shamefully lax. Had Great Aunt Lysandra still been living, she would have taken her brother's descendants firmly in hand.

Standards were lowering everywhere as the old ways were allowed to fall to the wayside. It infuriated Walburga to see her lessers encroach while wizards and witches of good families ignored the tide of filth threatening to overwhelm them. She worried her for sons. Her son, she corrected herself. She worried for her son, forced to live in a corrupt world

The disowned boy would be trouble. Had always been trouble. She had tried to make him hide his flaws, to keep his regrettably slip-shod conduct in private but he insisted on defiance. Stubborn, stupid boy who had forced their hand. But at least now the whispers would stop. No one had anything bad to say about Regulus. Her family would be safe with him as their heir.

Nothing was said of courting but Theo thought that their witnessing of the squabble, even tangentially, had cemented a need for an alliance. The House of Black was prey for gossip right now, and the Varinens could add blood to the water.

Hermione thankfully took his advice to keep her answers as simple as possible. She could lie but her Gryffindor style bluffing was too brash for the dinner table. Regulus didn't speak much. He alternated between staring into space and looking faintly ill. When the feast was done, the expected postprandial conversation conversed and they were packed off back to Hogwarts, Theo was relieved.

He had lasted an entire taut meal with Orion and Walburga Black without shoving his sleeve up to flaunt his faded Dark Mark and curse them for their idiot bigotry. Theo wondered who would have been more surprised at his reaction to their prejudices, his hosts or himself.


	24. Bastion

Regulus took himself off to the Slytherin dungeon apologising for wishing privacy, leaving the Varinens to their own diversions. Which were skulking in Myrtle's bathroom and trying to finish their Animagus meditation.

Hermione had settled cross-legged in front of a bowl of copal resin in rose oil and had just cleared her mind of thoughts of Sirius when a horrible realisation rang loud. She cast a Muffliato though Myrtle was amusing herself in the plumbing.

"I didn't order Kreacher to keep quiet about me. If anyone asks, he'll tell them I'm a Black." Hermione confessed wretchedly. "I was so intent on getting Sirius out of there before his nutjob parents did something permanent that I didn't even think to forbid Kreacher to tell anyone."

"That is a problem." Theo abandoned his attempt to find a serene mind. He was not having much luck. His own memory seemed to be at war with him, throwing at him wincing recollections of all the times he had spouted purist opinions interspersed with the sight of that thick line of blood on the carpet. He had no doubt the Blacks would have cursed Sirius until he signed a repudiation. Or done away with the need for paperwork and simply killed him. Their own son. Because he was unworthy. Because his pure blood wasn't pure enough.

Some things were not done. If anything mattered, then there had to be a line you did not cross. Theo would never forgive the Varinens for abandoning his mother. Family was sacred. In Orion's place, he might have exiled his son, raged at him, forced him into a betrothal contract with someone who would moderate him, bribed him, waited him out or simply cut him off from the family funds and let him run amok on his own Knut. Lopping off branches made the tree weak.

"I'll try to summon him again." Hermione spoke her intention aloud to get his feedback not his permission. She wanted to know whether calling the elf was tactically sound. Theo's frowning nod gave her a good indication he mirrored her thoughts. Not good but something she needed to try.

She cut her finger and called for Kreacher. He should be able to come to Hogwarts. Dobby had as a free elf. Hermione felt a vague sort of pull that was then sharply tugged back. Was it the castle wards or a Black forbidding Kreacher's departure?

"Try again." Theo urged when the first summoning failed. Hermione doused the incense and stood up, letting her blood drip in a small circle on the tiles. She really shouldn't get into the habit of cutting herself in bathrooms. The risk of infection was high and it was just too, too maudlin.

Again she called and again she felt the thwarted tug. Hermione shook her head. She cleaned up and healed herself, the Episkey stinging across the recent cuts. Flesh remembered.

"We'll simply have to be ready to run. If the Blacks demand an explanation, we can't answer." Going to the Varinens had been a calculated risk. Answering to the Blacks with Bellatrix Lestrange seething in the background would be suicide.

"I was so damn caught up in protecting Sirius I just didn't think!" Hermione wanted to stamp her feet and pull her hair and scream. What she did do was sit down, relight the incense then try to salvage something useful from her lapse.

Both felt it took them longer to finish than it should. Theo's backside was aching from sitting and Hermione's feet had fallen asleep when the change overtook them. At first it was a rushing tide of magic, which spun into dizzying eddies, twisting them with the current until they were so turned around they didn't know up from down.

Hermione blinked. She had a muzzle and when she turned she saw she had a bushy tail, a mix of red and brown with a black tip. Her legs were black too like she was wearing dainty boots. Hermione jumped up onto one of the sinks to see herself in the mirror.

Vulpes vulpes. The red fox, with a grey colour morph so her fur looked more like her own human hair than bright Weasley ginger. Hermione grinned and shook herself. The unfamiliar action and body threw off her balance, sending her sliding off the basin onto the floor.

There was another fox there. A tod with the piebald colour of an Arctic fox changing from his summer to winter coat. He had Theo's dark blue eyes and when she edged forward, he touched noses with her.

Hermione jumped back with an excited yip. Theo padded towards her, giving her a good sniff. She flattened her ears then sniffed him back. He smelled alright. Quite nice, actually. So she bit him lightly before dashing away to hide among the cubicles.

They played chasey, climbing and jumping like mad things through the bathroom. Theo cornered her in one of the back stalls but she bopped him on the muzzle and ran off trilling. He pounced after her, misjudged how many legs he had and ended sprawled in human form flat on his stomach. Hermione heard his oath, spun to check on him before abruptly turning human herself ending on her bum with her back to a sink pedestal.

When she looked in the mirror, her hair had completely run amok. It looked like she had blow-dried it with a jet turbine. The witch grinned at her reflection. Not an otter but not so far removed. The war had changed her, bringing out a sharpness that had been quiescent. But she was still herself.

Theo got to his feet, dusting himself off. Not a budgerigar, he chuckled. A fox, with a nod to the Nordic heritage on both sides of his family. He joined Hermione at the mirror. His hair looked a fright too.

"Vixen." He smiled at her. Hermione smiled back and kissed him on the cheek. It was a familiar gesture, fond and insufficient right now. Theo leant forward to touch noses with her, smiling.

"Dog." Hermione giggled, a high sound like a fox's call. She took a deep breath feeling much better. The witch didn't even become frustrated when she had to cast and recast braiding charms to tame her hair. They'd done it. They were Animagi.

"Now what shall we do?" Theo bounced on his toes, brimming over with a sense of accomplishment. They had finally got something done. So much of their time here had been frustrating dead ends. "I have a few ideas for pinpointing the temporal nexus. Grinding Arithmancy iterations but useful."

"I'd like to try some of the heraldic binding spells." She didn't say they should hurry, and she noticed Theo didn't mention they were on a countdown either. Hermione didn't know when the Marauders would finish their map but she got the feeling she shouldn't start anything she had to linger over.

"The library." He offered her his hand and she took it.

They had a productive few hours before dinner. Theo wore out three quills and achieved a workable alignment for a scrying spell. He'd have to cast it into a geomantic compass but it would help them. Hermione refined the binding spells, successfully infusing a gust of air into a small bead. She had a plan.

They ate a hearty meal with the rest of Slytherin House, chatting to their fellows. Snape watched them with narrowed eyes. Regulus was absent. Berengaria Yaxley was largely ignored by everyone despite her pretty apology to the Varinens.

The 'twins' went to the North Tower to hunt for a luopan in the Divination classroom. When they slipped into the room, it appeared to be empty though they heard footsteps on the stairs behind them. They were being followed.

This was not a revelation as both Hermione and Theo had intermittently noticed the attention of other students on them. But the slow pace wasn't that of a schoolmate. They stepped back out of the room to wait for whoever was plodding up the steps.

Professor Vablatsky paused when she saw them. She lifted the watch pinned to her robe then wound it irritably. The benighted gadget had stopped. That was the drawback of clockwork. It had no sense of urgency.

"I had hoped not to see you." The old witch blinked at the misplaced children. "I don't want to know any more than I have already Seen." Dark times then darker times then the illusion of peace before the clouds again gathered. "It can't be helped, I suppose."

"We'll lie regardless." Hermione remarked, unsure whether she should draw her wand.

"Yes, dear, I know. Best thing to do. People get so fretful without context. Adrian has been a bundle of nerves for weeks." Cassandra Vablatsky pulled a brass disk from a pocket in her robe and handed it to the boy who called himself Orpheus. "You will need that. You will not get a chance after today. The Potters will come to see the Headmaster tomorrow. He will have to question you, and that would be awkward."

"Should we leave tonight?" Theo asked because he heeded warnings.

"You will be able to do so far more quietly than if you slept in." The Divination Professor blinked at them again. "You are both so foggy I get such a headache looking at you. I think you have made enough ripples already, don't you?" Cassandra remembered something and tugged a ring off her thumb, holding it out for the many-named girl. "Worth the risk for the forgotten boy."

"It will change a lot." Hermione took the ring. She had been debating with herself ever since she had learned she could bind water into an object. Enough to quench any thirst.

"Only for a few people, though. His thread doesn't touch many." The purple robed witch rubbed her temples vexedly. "Please believe him when he says the only other way for you is to wait out your allotted span. He wants what he wants, of course, but he is honest about your paths home."

"Thank you, Professor." Theo aired his manners then made a hurried exit. He towed a pensive Hermione along with him. They were down by the lake before she seemed to come to a decision. While he paced the shore making careful notes of the compass needle's movements, Hermione cast a heraldic charm to bind water into the aquamarine stone set in the simple silver ring.

"Do you want to risk spending the night?" She asked, dropping her night-vision spell so she could use a Lumos to check the colour of the infused gem. Liquid swirled within the stone, shimmering subtly. You would only notice it if you looked for it and the spell itself was not powerful enough to attract attention itself.

"No." Theo waded into the lake up to his waist to take more measurements. There was definitely a concentration of energy there. The readings weren't terribly exact but natural magic rarely was. An old ley line or wellspring, lying athwart the school's wards.

"Me neither." Hermione doused her wand light. She didn't want to attract the interest of any of their shadows. "I'd like to speak to Idra before we go. And I need to give Regulus this ring."

"The forgotten boy." Jealousy lanced through him. Theo knew it was unwarranted. Hermione was fond of Regulus, only fond. But rings were significant to pure-bloods. Her giving someone else a token hurt. However, such an admission should not be done in a rush half-submerged.

"It's been in my mind since we arrived. I have to let so many people die. Their threads touch too many others." The Professor's analogy seemed apt. "I hate that I can't save them. I feel culpable."

Theo splashed over to her. There were words he could say, something pithy about having no guilt to assuage but all the phrases sounded like dross. Hermione understood the weight of foreknowledge. Diminishing her feelings with platitudes infantalized her.

"What will you say to him?" He touched her arm when she looked at him in surprise. Hermione stepped closer, tacitly requesting reassurance. Theo hugged her and held her tighter when she shuddered against him fighting tears.

"I'll find some lies. I've fibbed enough since we've been here. I'm sure I can say something he'll believe." Hermione buried her face in his robes and spoke mostly to his shirt. It didn't matter what she said. She'd use the Imperius to get Regulus to wear the bloody ring.

The Slytherin Common Room was quiet. It would be tempting to say too quiet, Hermione thought with a sense of narrative disappointment. An ordinary quiet. Regulus was waiting for them in their reading chairs, and went with them to the Sixth Year boys' dorm.

Theo started packing. They had opportunity to take everything with them so they might as well. And to clean up all physical trace of themselves. He couldn't recall injuring himself so there would be none of his blood in the room but there would be skin and possibly nail parings though he was careful about disposing of those. Any remnant of himself could be used to track him.

"You're leaving." Regulus stated. Hermione nodded. "Because of what happened at home?"

"Not specifically. I should have been more careful but we've been expecting this for weeks." She hedged, not wanting to say more than she needed. "I wish I could explain. I wish a lot of things." Pulling the ring out, Hermione offered it to him flat on her palm. "This is one of those things I can't tell you. I bound water into the stone and one day I think you will really need it."

Regulus surprised her by taking the ring and sliding it onto the third finger of his right hand, where a betrothal or promise ring would go. Hermione opened her mouth to lie or try not to lie or mumble something incoherent. She wasn't sure herself what she would say.

"To remind me you care." Regulus attempted a smile. "And that I shouldn't ask for more."

"I'm sorry." Hermione said, letting her breath out. "I just want to help. I wish I could do more."

"You saved Sirius. I will always be grateful for that, even though he's a colossal arse." He tried to sound amused but it fell flat. Ophelia blinked and he saw with dismay she was trying not to cry. "I am sorry."

"We're all bloody sorry." Theo snapped before the meeting became a Hufflepuff convention. "Hug him, you know you want to, and let's get going. We need to find a way into Ravenclaw Tower."

"Why?" Regulus asked as he was hugged fiercely. He hugged her back just as tightly, refusing to ask when they would be returning. The obvious answer hurt.

"Idra Deverill." Shrinking his trunk, Theo started casting cleansing spells.

"She was very kind to us and she doesn't have many friends." Hermione let Regulus go, mentally and physically. She couldn't do anything more. What she wanted most to warn him about, he wouldn't heed. Not yet. "We don't want to leave without saying something. She'll be in the firing line when questions are asked about us."

"I'll do what I can to help her." Regulus offered, doubting he'd be able to do much. Perhaps if he asked some of the First Year Slytherins to befriend the girl. She did come from a good family.

Hermione nodded, knowing there wasn't a lot that could be done to shield Idra. Gupta was in her House and was already suspicious. Depending on how the Gryffindors reacted to the Varinens' sudden departure, the questions could get quite pointed.

"It might be easier for her to transfer to Beauxbatons. Please suggest it, anyway." Would that twist the timeline too much? She didn't know. Hermione had never felt so clueless, so adrift in her life.

But at least she knew how to pack. When she left the boys to go to her own dorm, she got everything squared away quickly. Hermione wasn't sure where they were going or what they would do now they were cut off from Hogwarts. Heading to Finland to ask the Varinens for sanctuary seemed the most sensible option. That would be a trek and a half.

The 'twins' left the dungeons as nonchalantly as they could manage. It was still a few hours before curfew so their Housemates would assume they were heading to their usual haunt in the Library. They checked there first, hoping Idra was at their table.

She was. But she didn't look happy.

She looked quite miserable, in fact. It wasn't obvious but the Varinens were so keyed up they saw the little ways she tried to hide it. Her quills were crooked, left askew when she fiddled with them, and she was sitting very straight in her chair like she did when someone was watching her. Idra had endured a strict governess who'd been a harpy on comportment.

Theo and Hermione fell back out of sight and immediately started casting spells. The first was a Shield Charm each then a Notice-Me-Not. They might have been observed approaching already, however continuing to barge forward was too brash for either of them.

Hermione went right, staying close to the bookcases while Theo went left down the wider aisle leading to the section on runic translations. They used a variety of detection spells as they weren't checking only for the presence of people.

She spotted Pettigrew in rat form lurking under a table. Hermione smiled as she got him with a Full Body Bind. The witch ducked quickly behind a curio cabinet before looking around to see if her spell had been noticed.

Nothing moved. She could see Idra at the table. Was there a faint shimmer beside her? The magical lamplight wasn't crisp enough for her to be certain. Hermione edged forward aware she didn't feel in any way ridiculous for her wariness.

Someone shouted to the left, a male voice. Not Theo, and not Remus as it was the last day of the full moon. He'd be in the Shrieking Shack. Pettigrew was petrified so who else was there? Surely it was James beneath the cloak, if there was an invisible person at the table.

"Sorry but I'd like you to stop cursing my Housemates." A deep voice spoke as a hand fisted in her hair, digging into her braids and dragging her backwards. Hermione didn't resist. She leant into the hold, bringing her arm back to stab whoever it was with her wand. He grabbed her wrist. Which meant he had both hands occupied while she had one free.

Hermione twisted, gritting her teeth as her hair pulled against her scalp and got both hands on her wand. She'd helped Ron and Harry practice their Auror self-defence and capture techniques. While she was hardly a ninja, she had got quite good at resisting arrest.

"Bombarda!" He was too close for her to risk a stronger spell as she didn't want to serious injure her foe. The Cannon Charm went off with a boom, sending them both tumbling across the floor. His wand went flying. Not hers because she had two hands on it. The impact jarred her elbows when she hit the floor but she was up and hexing quickly.

Her opponent was no slouch either. Hermione got a glimpse of a plaid shirt as he dove behind a bookcase, her spell striking the shelf. She cast a Muffling Spell on herself and ran. Everyone in the Library would've heard the boom. Hermione did not want to be found at ground zero.

She skidded around a corner, spotted a group of Slytherins at a table and joined them, dropping most of her spells in an effort to look casual. The Fourth Years variously twitched, shied or went still in their surprise then feigned unconcern. One slid a book across to her. Hermione opened it, remembering to periodically turn pages as she listened intently for signs of combat.

Something splintered with the loud crackling noise of a Reductor Curse. One of the Hufflepuff Prefects hurried past the table to investigate the ruckus. Older students started taking an interest in the noises. Hermione spotted Mulciber oozing his way towards the Runes books.

Not good. She was on the point of rising to return to the fray regardless of the consequences when Theo staggered out of the stacks dragging Idra with him. His nose was bleeding freely and his robes were torn. He looked pleased with himself nonetheless.

"Well, we definitely have an excuse to leave now." Theo grinned despite his broken nose.


	25. Bunburying

They headed directly to the first floor, to the Passage of the Fouls where there was a useful niche behind a tapestry of Herpo Hexing the Symposium. Hermione healed Theo's nose as he mended his robes.

"I didn't want to do it!" Idra protested when they turned to speak with her. Her eyes swam with tears as she choked out the words. "Gupta is a Prefect. She said I had to!"

"Do what, exactly?" Theo asked coldly. If people thought their audience was unreceptive they tended to provide more information to win them over. Or clam up, but the little witch was too agitated to still her tongue.

"Lure you in so they could catch you." The Ravenclaw shook as she confessed, willing to face their wrath rather than run away. "That Gryffindor Potter was so angry. He was shouting at Gupta and the two older boys. His parents had sent him an owl about something and he blamed you."

"Sirius." Hermione sighed. She handed Idra a handkerchief. "Were they all irate?"

"No, well, not really. Gupta was cross because everyone was yelling. The rat-faced boy wanted to hex me but Gupta drew her wand on him and said I was a First Year who didn't know better." Idra pursed her mouth at that, mopping her face. "The older boys said if they brought you and Regulus Black to the Headmaster, he would have to punish you for what you did to Sirius."

"We didn't do anything to Sirius Black." Theo could empathise now with Rosier's reluctance to commit altruism. Slytherins were so often punished for it. Nothing had changed.

"Potter said his parents said Sirius said you were there when he was hurt." Idra relayed then shrugged. There had been a lot of shouting and she'd hidden behind Gupta. "Regulus Black was in the Slytherin dungeons and they couldn't get him but you were always in the Library so they thought they could just wait. That you'd sit with me."

"Idra, you did nothing wrong." Hermione consoled when she saw the girl's lip tremble. "Some situations you cannot escape. You endure, marshal your strengths and wait for an opportunity." She crouched so she could look directly at the Ravenclaw without a power imbalance. "We're not mad at you. We are worried you'll be blamed for being our friend."

"I couldn't do anything." Idra said in bitter frustration. "I had to sit there and wait and wait and I wanted to warn you but I couldn't."

"Remember that feeling and study." Theo advised. A dedication to her own education would keep her out of trouble and help her not to notice how lonely she was. It had worked for him. "You'll be able to do more when you know more."

"I will." She nodded, wearily relieved they weren't going to hex her for betraying them. "Do you have to leave?"

"Oh yes." Hermione winced mentally at the all-in duel that had been building in the Library. A lot of Slytherins had seen Theo's bloodied face and were keen for reciprocity. Mulciber would egg things on rather than defuse them and if James was looking to settle accounts for Sirius, anyone in green would be fair game.

"Go to your Head of House and tell him we were furious with you, that we demanded to know what you'd told them but we were in a hurry to Apparate so we didn't hang about to curse you." Theo instructed. "And don't look Dumbledore in the eye. He's a Legilimens."

Idra nodded and scurried off. The Varinens were not in a hurry to Apparate though they did want to leave quickly. They went to the classroom with the Vanishing Cabinet and made their exit from Hogwarts.

Borgin and Burkes was closed and unlike last time, firmly locked. It took them several minutes to dispel the security charms and curses before they could leave then several more to cast them all again so hopefully no one would notice their transit.

They Apparated to a lane near King's Cross station. It was unlikely anyone would be at the Varinens' house but leaving the country without checking seemed daft. Hermione and Theo eschewed invisibility spells for simpler disguises as the streets were still crowded and people noticed odd gaps in the traffic flow even if they weren't consciously aware of the cause.

"Who broke your nose?" Hermione asked as they waited for the traffic lights to change.

"A Gryffindor Seventh Year. Sandy hair, quite beefy." Theo rubbed his face. The other young man, he'd concede the Lion the honour of not being a boy any more, had jumped him and got him on the floor before he'd had time to react. No spells hitting his Shield meant no advanced warning of the attack.

"Someone tried to grab me too. I think they've had some Auror training. Or had some tips, possibly. Most wizards don't go in for hand-to-hand combat." They hurried across the street when the light went green. Hermione admired the historic buildings gilded by the streetlights. Her pace slowed to an amble as the adrenalin of the afternoon ebbed.

"I turned into a fox and bit him." He said, quite smug about his transformation. "It was very satisfying."

"He's lucky you're not rabid. Do you know how many bacteria are in a human mouth?" Hermione did as her parents were dentists.

"Fox." Theo smiled, matching her stride. He held her hand and they strolled, shedding some of their tension into the crisp night air. Hermione sighed.

"I am being serious so please forgive the stupid question." She began in hopes of venting some of the minor worries bouncing around her head to make room for the big ones she couldn't shift. "Do you like me, Ophelia or Nemesia more?"

"That's difficult." He gave the query some thought. "I don't know Nemesia. Truthfully, I don't want to know her. I've met her parents." Theo didn't grimace. He schooled his expression automatically at the mere mention of Madam Lestrange. "Ophelia is my sister, which is awkward as I would quite like to court you. Have a chaperone in your own head is uncomfortable."

"Court me?" Hermione repeated the words to hear them in her own voice to check if they still sounded antiquated. They did.

"Pure-bloods don't date. I don't know what you expect. Do Muggles just drift about having lunch with people until they fall over someone they want to marry?" Theo didn't mention the presumed rampant debauchery. There were a great many Muggles. Billions, if he recalled Hermione's own words correctly.

"Pretty much." Her experience dating consisted of doing things alone with Ron as opposed to with Ron and Harry. The activities weren't all that different except for the snogging. "Movies, museums, picnics and so forth. Less scripted than your rarefied social events."

"Would you like to see if we suit?" He asked, carefully neutral and despising himself for his lack of composure. He wasn't going to beg. Some grovelling perhaps for past slights.

"I would." Hermione paused, looking away to check street names and find some tact. "I enjoy your company. I worry though that when we get back to when we should be, our friendship will drift away. We need each other now. That breeds dependency."

"We might not be able to return. Or if we do, we will be out of step with everyone else." Would there be two of them? Temporal doppelgangers who had lived different lives? Despite making it immeasurably difficult to return, Theo could understand the Ministry restricting the study of time magic. Simply keeping everything straight in his head was arduous.

"I'd like some more answers before I give up on my future with Ron. If I have one." Nothing had been settled. "I don't know if I want to be married to an Auror. I've done more than my fair share of waiting for bad news. Ron followed Harry because that's what he does. I'm not sure if he'll stick it out."

"I think I'd like to be a Healer, or at least train as one." Theo considered the hypothetical prospect of gainful employment. The Nott fortune wasn't what it had been before the war but he didn't have to work. "I'm still irritated that I couldn't sustain the vulnera sanentur. I've never had such trouble with a spell before."

"Snape invented it so it's possible it's very tailored to the caster." Hermione mused. "I've used it myself and it's fiddly. You really do have to sing it."

"I have been told I have a singing voice like a toad in a bucket." He smirked. Pucey could sing beautifully. Even Flint could carry a tune though his bass was so deep he sounded like he was chanting in a dwarven delve.

"I'll win no prizes at an eisteddfod. My parents made me try all the Arts. I gave it a go. My piano teacher actually asked me to leave." She smirked at that, obscurely pleased that she had proven diligent practice was not all that was required to learn how to play well. Eight year old Hermione had not liked Mrs Nielson at all.

Varinen House was dark and ostensibly deserted. Theo tried the wards then shook his head as they pushed back at him. A few spells confirmed what he suspected. No one was home.

"Inconvenient." He put his wand away. It seemed they would be going to Finland the long way.

"I think we should avoid magical London. We've got a bit of a head start but not much. Assuming anyone is looking for us." Hermione weighed their options. They had no proof they were being hunted but if Orion and Walburga had questioned Kreacher then it wouldn't take Bellatrix long to learn of her as-yet-unborn daughter's existence.

"I'm prepared to be quite paranoid if it means evading Tom." Theo asserted, turning away from the townhouse to head back to the Muggle Underground.

"There are a lot of vacant buildings occupied by the homeless during this era. We could share a squat and blend in with the counter-culture." Her parents had been too staid to be hippies though some of their university friends had dabbled in the scene. "Bloomsbury Square is about two miles that way." Hermione waved an arm vaguely south-east. "It might be fun."

"I thought you had Muggle money." He was absolutely, fundamentally not going to sit in any position with dispossessed Muggles. Not even for the sake of not hurting Hermione's feelings. Theo recognised however that saying so outright would not go over well.

"Not from this year." Ignoring any temporal hiccup caused by trying to use money that wouldn't be printed for twenty years, the notes would certainly look counterfeit. "The paper notes wear out so new ones are constantly being printed, with small changes in art and security measures to keep people from forging them."

"Not a bad system, I suppose." If the Muggles could maintain the cycle of renewal then their currency would be relatively sound. The goblins had a better system. Each coin had the serial number of the smith who cast it, to ensure the integrity of manufacture. There was little point tracking the date the coin was struck as the charms put upon wizarding coinage protected against tarnishing. There were coins in circulation from the thirteenth century, though the older the Galleon the more likely it was to be in a pure-blood family's vault.

"So we Apparate or pitch a tent in Regent's Park." Hermione made the effort to sound enthusiastic but it was getting late and chilly and that reminded her how much she hated camping.

"How far east or north-east can you reliably Apparate?" Theo reviewed a mental map of his travels. "I could take us to Trier. I went there last summer to see the Porta Nigra. Marvellous preservation of the genius loci."

"For furthest east, I've been to Bulgaria. I visited Viktor there for three weeks so I could Apparate to his family's home in Plovdiv but I don't have the range to get us there in one go." If they wanted to get to Finland, going via the Balkans was hardly direct. "I could get us to the National Art Gallery in Berlin but I think it would be in East Berlin now."

"And that is a problem why?" He had been diligently plodding through the Muggle Studies texts and had learned enough to start noticing the lacunae without Hermione pointing them out. The books went into detail about the collapse of the Empires then glossed over current events as though Muggles had simply gone back to living in huts. Professor Egg had done an estimable job to bridge the gaps but Theo simply didn't understand why the gallery's location would be an issue.

"Communists. Remember the chapters on the Muggles aping Grindelwald's war?" She paused to renew the Muffliato with a flick of her wand. "Well, they stayed in power in eastern Europe and Russia until the Nineties. Berlin right now is divided in half. Most of the museums and galleries I visited would be in the unfriendly part."

"Trier, then. There's a large magical community there." Theo advocated. He didn't have to persuade very hard. Staying in Britain was not enticing with Death Eaters around every corner. They ducked into an alley and Theo Apparated them to the old Roman city on the Moselle.

They arrived on the eastern bank of the river within sight of the ancient gates. It was noticeably colder, about ten degrees Celsius, Hermione guessed. She cast Warming Charms on them both as Theo got his balance back.

"You look fine." He complained. She hadn't even gone pale. Theo felt like his liver had rearranged itself.

"Spent a year jumping all over Britain. Side-Along doesn't bother me any more." The witch shrugged. The wizard straightened with an aggrieved look.

They headed south towards the newly reopened cathedral. Trier was still dingy in places with walls pockmarked by shrapnel though this was offset by new apartment buildings in cream brick and brightly coloured signage everywhere. The old city was doing well for itself.

The magical part of Trier had been there since the settlement was Augusta Treverorum, and the residents were quietly pleased to mention it. The witch who walked under the warded arch with them casually let them know Trier had been founded before Merlin. The wizard who gave them directions to the inn and the wizard at the Hexennest both informed the tourists of the provenance of their city.

The innkeeper also eyed their robes. Hermione was getting a little irritated by that. She and Theo had Transfigured their uniforms into less distinctive clothes and had removed all Hogwarts insignias. Why everyone was looking at them, she didn't know.

"Will you and your..." The portly wizard paused, waiting for clarification or perhaps a lie from the young couple. Not so young he would have to report them but barely of age and alone together suggested they were doing something they ought not.

"Sister." Theo inserted the word firmly. "Orpheus Varinen." He introduced himself with a small bow. "My twin, Ophelia Varinen." While he did not want to announce to the world where they were, neither did he wish to be fodder for gossip. "We would like two rooms and an owl capable of making the journey to Finland to inform our father where we are."

The innkeeper was not acquainted with the Varinen family but he knew the tone. Hermione was surprised at how pleasant he became after Theo's show of snoot. Wizarding etiquette was still a puzzle to her. No one seemed to treat customer service well and name-dropping was a chronic affliction.

Unfortunately however, the innkeeper could not Gemino the one room he had left. The Hexennest was nearly booked out for Samhain as there were several strongly consecrated sites near the city that were favoured by traditionalists. While celebrating the harvest festival wasn't as popular as Walpurgisnacht on the Continent, the wizarding vintners in the Moselle valley would not shirk any offering to the spirits.

Theo and Hermione didn't complain. The room was large, clean and comfortable. Neither of them were going to object to a soft bed albeit one shared. Hermione washed and changed in the bathroom then swapped with Theo, who had spent the time warding the room. She was asleep before he joined her and he wasn't awake long either.

Morning happened around eleven o'clock when someone knocked on their door. It took her a moment to recall where she was and find her wand and robe but Hermione answered the door before the knock turned from inquiring to demanding.

A matronly witch with ornately braided hair and an apron starched so white it sparkled stood foursquare to the threshold. A covered tray floated behind her. In precise English, Hermione was informed she and her brother had missed breakfast and the kitchen of the Hexennest did not provide luncheon to the guests. However as they were new, their ignorance could be forgiven. The tray drifted into the room, settling on the round table by the window.

"Thank you." Hermione said to the witch's back as she trotted briskly away. Shutting the door so as not to give offence as she cast every poison detection charm she knew on the food, Hermione found nothing untoward.

Maybe the witch was a genuinely kind person who hadn't wanted two late arrivals to go hungry. Or maybe she had wanted to sticky-beak into their room to check they weren't up to anything. Hermione drank a glass of pumpkin juice and woke Theo.

"When we're both awake, we need to discuss what Kreacher told me." She sat at the breakfast table to brunch. "I didn't ask him any questions. I really wasn't at my best that day." Hermione castigated herself as her 'brother' padded over. "He said elf magic had brought us from there to here."

"That phrase specifically? Elf magic?" Theo rubbed his face. He had slept heavily and his wits seemed to be still half dozing. Buttering a roll, he stared at the jam, marmalade, honey and cheese curd in little jars. Opting for honey as the least challenging, Theo chewed meditatively.

"Specifically." Hermione confirmed, diving into the strawberry jam. "Not house elf magic or elven magic, though the latter distinction may be a product of the dialect of the domestic fey." Theo muttered something into his bread roll. "What?"

"The Horned God is an elf, technically. Of the Aes Sidhe." He bit vengefully into his breakfast, chewed, swallowed then threatened. "If he was the one who brought us here, that bastard is venison."


	26. Bildungsroman

After breakfast, Theo and Hermione reviewed their attire and packed away their uniforms. Fashions were more conservative in magical Europe, which Hermione learned when she asked about all the eyeballing she had noticed the night before.

"Robes are acceptable for everyday. Certainly they were when we came from but cloaks are more appropriate for travel." Theo shrugged, setting out a shirt, sweater and suit. His Slytherin tie was fine as were his shoes with a bit of polish. "I know you're rolling your eyes."

"I honestly thought you were joking about the cloaks, and then the seamstress in Twilfitt's went on about hood depth and profile. I see now the madness is endemic." Hermione held up dresses and frowned at them. She would really have preferred jeans but unless they went Muggle, trousers were pretty much out.

Respectably clad and cloaked, they went to the Owl Post Office to send a letter to Henrik Varinen. Hermione saw with disfavour that Theo was right. No one looked aside at them. Even after ten years in the wizarding world, she still felt like a superhero when she wore a cloak. Add a utility belt and she could be Batgirl.

Their missive to Orpheus's adoptive father was deliberately bland. It said only that they had left Hogwarts and wished to stay with the Varinen family. No mention of how long a stay or the reasons why they had run away from school.

"Unless something eats the owl, it will arrive tomorrow evening." Hermione considered their accommodation, financial status, free time, and general well-being. The Hexennest was pleasant and while a bit pricey was affordable, which took care of the first two issues. They couldn't stay there indefinitely but they wouldn't be reduced to penury while they waited for Henrik's reply.

There was a branch of Gringotts so the 'twins' changed some Galleons into Deutsche Marks. As they didn't know yet how they were getting to Finland, they held off on converting more currency. Francs, Kroner, and Zloty, oh my.

They also checked prices and availability of Portkeys. The German Ministry held onto many statutes enacted during the era of the Holy Roman Empire, including a boggling jumble of travel requirements and restrictions. While they could afford a Portkey directly to Helsinki from Trier, they would have to apply in person to the Transport Office in Bielefeld. According to the witch behind the counter, the waiting time for an appointment for an application was nine days.

"Let's go for a walk around the city. You'll like the Aula Palatina." Theo offered her his arm and they strolled decorously. They managed to remain fairly restrained even under the influence of the archaeology in the Rhineland Museum, though both succumbed to the urge to murmur translations of the Latin inscriptions on the artefacts to check if any were incantations.

Theo and Hermione had ice cream in a little café near one of the medieval churches then went for meander along the Moselle, both deep in thought.

"If we had to stay, would you be willing to live with the Varinens?" Theo asked, his gaze on a flotilla of ducks in the river, not on Hermione. She paused at his question and watched the waterfowl too as she considered.

"With you, do you mean?" Her question got a mute nod. More consideration. "I'd keep trying to get back. I wouldn't just give up. There's a lot more research we could do." Lengthy, restricted, complex research. "It could take us years to find our own way back. I assume that's what Professor Vablatsky meant by our allotted span."

"I made a promise I would join the covenant. If Nyyrikki can't send us home, I have an obligation to fulfil." As much as their goal was a swift departure, Theo felt he had to plan for disappointment.

"Children." Which he could not produce alone, and for which the Varinens were desperate.

"Yes." He wouldn't have minded being a Gryffindor right now, able to brazen out the awkward conversation.

"With a spouse of whom the Horned God approves." Hermione remembered that little detail. Henrik hadn't given the impression Nyyrikki was picky, just proud.

"I anticipate he will be easier to please than my biological father." Theo smirked, glancing at Hermione. Who would never have been good enough for him until the miraculous transformation of the discovery of her true heritage. If her lineage had been known during their time at Hogwarts, there would've been a queue to court her.

"Show up naked with beer." She quoted the old joke about how to impress a man.

"It may be that easy." Theo laughed. Nature spirits did not tend to be complicated.

"I wouldn't stay alone, and I wouldn't leave by myself." Hermione reached out to hold his hand, the connection instantly reassuring. "I think without you I would've gone mad. I would've made all sorts of mistakes, made everything infinitely worse."

"The same." He agreed. "You made this bearable."

"So, yes, I think I would be willing to live with the Varinens, have kids, and become the foremost authority on temporal magic." She glanced at the ducks. "You know, I do rather want to chase them."

Two foxes dashed along the riverbank, pouncing into the water to startle the birds then run barking after them. They didn't catch anything. Hermione slipped on the wet rocks and ended up nose deep in the river but they had a lovely time.

Theo's snigger in vulpine form was particularly smug so Hermione bopped a wet paw on his nose then dashed away. He chased her into the bushes, where she ambushed him and they wrestled. The witch was gasping with laughter when she changed back, sitting in the shrubbery with her hair full of leaves and her arms full of fox.

"That's cheating." Theo remarked when he became human again and Hermione had her arms full of wizard. He hugged her before removing himself from her person as a gentleman does not roll about on the ground with a young lady he is courting. At least not if the gentleman doesn't want the young lady to notice how much he is enjoying himself.

"Slytherin." Hermione transfigured some of the leaves into ribbons to restrain her curls and ending with a nest of serpents. The braiding charm really did seem to have a sense of humour.

"Very nice." He limited himself to a Scourgify and running his hands over his hair. It was short enough it behaved with minimal correction.

They tidied themselves before strolling back to the wizarding part of Trier, diverting to a Muggle bookstore to purchase a current atlas just in case they needed to plot out a route from Trier, West Germany to Lappeenranta, Finland.

"It's very close to the Russian border." Hermione lay on her stomach on the bed contemplating the multicoloured Europe printed on facing pages. As was inevitable with all maps, the bit she wanted to look at was in the middle near the binding. She flipped to a page showing Germany and the Benelux countries. "Apparating blind is risky enough. I don't want to overshoot and have to chat to the KGB with no papers."

"I expect someone will be sent to fetch us." Theo was reviewing the notes he had made around the Black Lake, arranging the measurements in a grid as the first step to making an Arithmantic coordinate equation for the site of their arrival. "I'd worry more about Russian wizards than the Muggle authorities. Politics in St. Petersburg are very troubled at this time. Dolohov isn't the only one who thought Tom was doing what was necessary."

"Lovely." She used her finger to estimate distances according to the scale of the map. "If we limit ourselves to more controlled jumps, we could go Copenhagen to Stockholm to Helsinki, though I'm not really happy about that last leg. It's mostly over water."

"Which is unforgiving if we misjudge our destination." He shared her misgivings. Apparating blind could be done, with a focussed mind and a general idea of navigation. It was also a fast way to get hopelessly lost.

"We could take a ferry across. I don't imagine it'd be expensive. But we'd have to use magic to get around the lack of passports." Travelling magically obviated the need for Muggle identification. "We could catch a bus or train then Apparate across the border and repeat."

"We could fly." Theo suggested and at Hermione's grimace explained further. "I know you are not enamoured of brooms but carpets aren't illegal in Europe. We could buy one and fly in relative comfort."

"It's more than a thousand miles from here to the Varinen estate. Do you want to spend days in the air, in October, on a secondhand throw rug?" Hermione inquired placidly. She'd never flown a carpet as they were banned in Britain. It might be possible. It would be draughty.

"Frankly, no." He had to be honest. "But I would rather trust our magic than the whims of Muggles. We would be crossing at minimum four countries, with four different languages and four different currencies. With no documentation. While we might be able to do it, I doubt it could be done discreetly."

"So do I." She still contemplated routes and refreshed her understanding of Communist era Europe. If they had to chain Apparate from Rhineland to South Karelia, Hermione wanted to be confident they wouldn't end up in the Baltic Sea.

The Varinens spent the rest of the evening reading before dressing for dinner and joining the other guests in the Hexennest's dining room. Walking down to dine, Hermione felt overdressed in her periwinkle gown until she saw everyone else.

They were the youngest of the guests by at least a decade and the older set of witches and wizards veered heavily towards velvet with gold embroidery. Fur wraps, the wizarding equivalent of mess dress, and evening gloves proliferated. Hermione thought the overall effect very Edwardian.

Theo stepped up from behind her, offering his arm to escort her to their table. He held her chair for her, which was a familiar courtesy. His laying his wand on the table was an unusual touch, one that the other male diners had also done. The witches present seemed to do the ordering so when a house elf appeared, Hermione took her cue.

There wasn't a menu per se. The house elf asked if they would like game, fish or fowl. Thinking of Theo's comment on venison, Hermione opted for game. That was it. Their waiter disappeared, water and wine carafes materialised on their table, and they were left to self-consciously dignified conversation.

"If we have another day here, I'd like to see more of the city. I haven't visited many Roman ruins other than in Bath." Hermione ventured quietly. There was a lot she didn't want to say in a crowded dining room. She suspected a Muffliato would be gauche.

"If the weather holds, there might be a tour available." Theo agreed happily, relaxing a little after he had recalled the etiquette for 'hunting lodge' dining. The attire of the other diners had given him a clue they were keeping to the formal, country ways. It wasn't fashionable in England but it was among the older families in Scotland and Ireland.

"Magical or Muggle?" She watched a nearby witch pour for her male companion so Hermione did the same. If they were going to stay medium-term with the Varinens, she was going to have to read up a lot more on etiquette. Or take her meals off a tray in her room in the best thwarted Regency maiden style.

"Magical. You do need to request the indulgence of one of the local scholars but the wizard who took me around the Amphitheatre was hopping keen to do so." Theo sipped his wine, a local red, then felt a sense of unreality wash over him. He was having dinner in a nice restaurant with a pretty, clever girl. His first courting meal.

From Theo's perspective, the evening went very well. No one paid particular attention to them, the food was good except for the horseradish sauce, and the conversation was excellent. Due to the need for secrecy, he and Hermione limited themselves to intellectual topics. Which included a lively discussion on translation charms that turned into a spirited dispute over runic verb forms.

In their room, intent on not losing the debate Hermione pulled a notebook from her beaded bag and flipped to the page detailing the inscription of the Seax of Beagnoth. The blade itself was in the British Museum but a photograph of it had been included in an especially patronising Muggle Studies book.

"See, a variant epel is written as a lantern rune." Hermione said triumphantly. Theo studied the copy of the photograph she had included in her notes about the differing efficacies of Latin and Anglo-Saxon incantations.

"I see." He agreed, and cast a Locking Charm on the bedroom door before turning to face her. She was perfect for him. Theo ducked his head and kissed Hermione softly on the mouth, tasting plum cake and her victorious smile.

Hermione's grip on her notebook tightened in surprise. The kiss wasn't aggressive. She didn't feel pushed or harried. She felt like summer, like champagne with strawberries, all warmth and bubbling sweetness.

When she put a hand flat on his chest, Theo stepped back. He was surprised at himself. He wasn't a demonstrative person, and he knew she had commitments to resolve in her own mind before she could make her final decision about the two of them. But the moment had seemed so perfect he couldn't regret overstepping.

"I just don't want it to be about being trapped here." Hermione said, speaking halfway through a mental monologue on not rushing into things. None of her kisses with Ron had felt like that. Warm, wanted and connected but not singing through her veins. Ron was affection not euphoria. "That was unexpected."

"I apologise I presumed. I have better self-control than that." Theo didn't want to make things awkward between them. If he had upset her, rather than encroach further he'd spend the night on the floor in penance for his misjudgement.

"No, I liked it." She admitted candidly. "I was surprised by how much I responded. The endorphins. That's a bit clinical, and I'm babbling." Hermione breathed in slowly. "I should see if the same effect happens when I kiss you. For science."

"For science." Theo agreed as her lips found his.

They were holding hands too, he noticed when he eased back to take a breath. Her face was pink. Theo expected his was too. Somewhere, somewhen Blaise Zabini was laughing at him. His Housemate would've had his inamorata flat on her back with her legs in the air by now. Zabini wouldn't be slightly breathless and awkwardly aware of his own groin.

"That was good." Hermione wanted to smack herself across the face to shake the silly out. Instead she nodded at Theo, patted his arm and retreated to the bathroom to alternately grin and roll her eyes at herself. How old was she? Twelve?

They shared the bed chastely. Theo had offered to take the floor but Hermione told him he was being ridiculous, and that if he was consumed by a fit of mad, lustful passion in the night she was quite capable of hexing him. And she trusted him to do the same should her wanton urges overwhelm her. Theo fell asleep chuckling to himself.

Their breakfast chaperone appeared at eight o'clock, letting herself in when Theo answered her knock with permission to do so. He'd been up for almost an hour and had been awake since their usual Hogwarts rising. Hermione was still in bed, sitting up surrounded by notes on fairy crossroads.

"The kitchen is open." The matronly witch informed them, surveying the neat room, the open books and the general lack of dissolution. The young man had his slippers on but he was otherwise fully dressed. The young woman's hair was done and she had ink on her fingers. The Fraulein came to the conclusion that their suspiciously well-locked door was simple boring security. Which was rather dull of them.

"Thank you." Hermione replied conventionally, her attention on her parchments. When the older witch remained in their doorway, clearly anticipating further response, she looked up. "Dinner was so filling we've decided to brunch somewhere Muggle."

The matron decided to take offence at this and left crisply. Theo and Hermione finished their review, got dressed then went to the river to test something that had occurred to Theo upon waking.

They had both had a very close look at the volume of the displacement effect in Black Lake before the water had washed over them. If they could replicate it, they would have a reasonable idea of the localised expenditure of magic. If a fey portal had opened and they had travelled along what was poetically known as the Twilight Road, they needed to know how much energy they required to open the door again.

The Varinens chose a stretch of the Moselle shaded by a copse of trees between two vineyards. Not the most secretive place but one not directly overlooked by a road. Wading into the chilly water, Hermione began casting binding spells to manipulate the surface of the river while Theo measured and calculated.

By ten o'clock Hermione was sweating despite the cold and Theo had developed quite a dislike for the numbers he was seeing. When the witch called a break and sloshed out of the Moselle, he shook his head.

"We need a ritual." Theo handed her his notes once Hermione had dried herself off. "Channelling that much energy through a single spell, even with a sympathetic wand and the right harmonies, would be impossible for a lone caster. I doubt we could do it in tandem without passing out from the strain."

"We'd also need an existing ley line, some framework to put the magic into so we're not holding all of it in ourselves." Hermione scribbled some sums with a fountain pen, freed from the tyranny of quills. "I hope you like hiking because we'll need to be in wild country to find the right site."

"Or we'll limn every ward and residential charm for miles, I know." He lifted his gaze to the cloudy sky. "Let's get something to eat and go for a tour of the ruins. We have a lot more to research before we can try any rite."

In an effort to distract themselves from the prospect of spending years flooding the countryside in their efforts to open a fairy gate, they convinced a local antiquarian to show them old Trier. The elderly wizard who took them around the vicus talked happily for hours delighted that someone took an interest in what his own grandchildren called 'alte Klumpen'.

The Varinens got back to the Hexennest late after treating their guide to a bistro dinner in thanks. They checked the Owl Post on their way in but there were no letters for them. Walking into the lobby of the inn, Theo and Hermione recognised their luggage stacked neatly on the carpet. They discreetly palmed their wands.

"I trust you have enjoyed your little demonstration of independence, children." Henrik Varinen, cloaked and gloved with snow still metaphorically on his boots, regarded the youngsters with grim patience. Something must had happened to send them fleeing from Hogwarts. Something almost certainly best not discussed in public. Fortunately they were clever and took his hint.

"Yes, Father." Theo answered, raising his chin. "I did say we could manage." Hermione backed him up with a slightly defiant nod. "Scholarly research is better done unfettered."

"Indeed." The Head of the House of Varinen silenced his heir with a look, paid the inn bill, shrunk their luggage and escorted them out of the Hexennest. Orpheus and Ophelia followed their father without protest. The Portkey whisked them to Finland with a sickening lurch.


	27. Blissom

The house of the House of Varinen was a castle. Hermione was surprised as they'd surely be significantly further north than the usual castling country. And building a stone fortress in a lake would be difficult even with magic.

Yet there it was in front of them, five round towers rising seemingly directly out of the water, which mirrored the pale stone until it was difficult to see where one began and the other ended. It was beautiful. So still and quiet Hermione jumped when Henrik spoke.

"The Varinenlinna was not always hidden from the Muggles. They built another castle much like ours north-east of here." He brushed his hood back, allowing the cold breeze to ruffle his hair. "But theirs fell to the Russians. Ours never did."

Henrik guided them from the islet they'd arrived upon to a stone pier connecting to the castle itself. A witch stood waiting to greet them in front of a broad pine door, both silvered from weathering.

"Tati Safina, I present to you my son Orpheus." Henrik bowed his head out of courtesy to his father's sister. As the Head of the House, he need give obeisance only to Nyyrikki but Safina had raised him after his mother had returned to her family. He owed her respect, and as his chatelaine she had the keys. She could lock him out if it pleased her.

"At least he's sober. Teuvo couldn't manage that two days together." The old witch replied in Finnish. She wasn't happy they had to take in her disowned nephew's bastard. No one was. But no one was birthing any other sons despite strenuous effort. Safina switched to French. "Bonsoir, petit-neveu."

"Bonsoir, madame." Theo answered with a full bow not just an inclination of his head. He could feel the wards and magical defences of the castle swirling around them. His adoptive father's aunt held the wards anchored to her, an impressive bit of control.

"I present to you Miss Nemesia Lestrange." Henrik moved on to the girl so they could get inside before it began to snow. He had told his family of the boy's interest in the witch and their vow of midsummer. That had eased some concerns. Teuvo had put off and sulked about marriage. If his son was already serious about a suitable young woman then so much the better.

"Bonsoir, mademoiselle." Safina looked the girl over, pleased she didn't appear to be an outright slut. It was the Horned God's acceptance that mattered not her own, a painful fact that clawed at the witch as she studied her eventual replacement.

"Bonsoir, madame." Hermione mimicked Theo. Witches didn't curtsey.

Safina opened the door to them, welcoming them technically if not enthusiastically. Her great-nieces Hella and Maaret were waiting in the entrance hall with karjalanpiirakka and mulled mead. Whatever her private feelings, Safina insisted on the proper formalities.

Theo and Hermione accepted a tankard and a rye pastry, eating and drinking as the two witches removed their cloaks to hang them on the elaborately carved stands decorating the room. Then the group rejoined the family meal the arrival of the long distance owl had interrupted.

Henrik sat at the head of the table with his uncle Aksel on his right and aunt Safina on his left. Precedence seemed to go by generation, Hermione guessed, as the ages of the Varinens decreased along the table in regular though not absolute tiers. Wives sat beside their husbands, which further threw off the chronological progression as some of the spouses were quite a bit younger than their Varinen men.

Theo sat between the wife of a much older cousin and Raino, the elder of the twin boys who were the last sons born to the House of Varinen. As she had not yet joined the family, Hermione was between a great-granddaughter of Katejin's uncle and the first of the under age children. All of whom were girls.

The conversation, what there was of it, was in Finnish. Hermione had initially felt a little snubbed to be sitting functionally at the kids' table until she realised how deeply unhappy everyone was. And how much they blamed Teuvo, and Theo by proxy.

After an uncomfortable interval, Aksel's wife rose. Most of the women and all the girls stood too, leaving the room. Hermione half-stood but was waved back into her seat by Henrik. All the Varinens by birth over the age of seventeen regarded her speculatively.

"Etes-vous enciente, mademoiselle Lestrange?" Safina asked, keeping to French as she doubted the girl had any Finnish. Henrik had said both spoke English by preference but the chatelaine was of an age where Russian and French were the languages necessary to a well-born witch.

"Non, madame." Hermione answered with her newly crafted Slytherin mask in place. The general response seemed to be disappointment. She looked to Henrik. "Should I be?"

"We had hoped your abrupt departure from Hogwarts was due to pregnancy. Nyyrikki favours expecting women." He explained. The Horned God was not often presented with a prospective wife already sown as pure-blood families frowned upon their daughters practising incautiously before marriage.

"Ophelia's family discovered where we were. We thought it best to leave before they demanded her return." Theo didn't even have to lie to maintain their cover. He did selectively edit but his conscience had long ago become inured to that sort of falsehood.

Seeing as this was becoming a general discussion, Henrik cast a translation charm. He had intended to question his adopted son privately over the missive he had received from the Hogwarts Headmaster, and whether he was still interested in Miss Lestrange. It seemed such surreptition was unnecessary.

"There was an incident at school. We were attacked." Hermione kept to the facts. "There is a war brewing in Britain. If we had remained, our relatives would have demanded we become involved."

"Our castle and our magic have protected us for centuries. Grindelwald could not touch us. Even when the Russians invaded again they could not take our land." Henrik had been a boy during the Muggle war that had torn pieces from their country. He remembered the growls of the Muggles' killing machines. "You will be safe here."

"We could hold the dedication in less than three weeks, at the feast of Kekri." Erland, eldest of the cadet branch of the House of Varinen, advocated strongly. He had seen the effect of the withdrawal of Nyyrikki's favour personally. Despite years of effort, his line would end with his sole grandson. Unless they could revive the covenant.

"Is that festival the equivalent of Samhain?" Hermione asked. The Celts had little influence this far north however harvest rites and liminal celebrations were universal among pagan faiths.

"All Hallows, yes. The Feast of the Dead." Henrik confirmed with a frown. "Not an appropriate festal day for new beginnings." His father had literally begged him, all but coercing a vow, to see Orpheus's introduction to Nyyrikki go perfectly. Sending the boy to the spirit on a funerary day could hardly engender fecundity.

"We are burying the old mistakes." Aksel supported his cousin. The two old wizards had led the push to adopt an heir from among the family's bastards rather than continue to make themselves a mockery by repeatedly divorcing and remarrying. They were traditionalists who had wed with binding vows. Seeing their grandsons hand-fast with girls barely pure-blood was as offensive as it was shameful.

Hermione listened as Henrik argued with his elder kinsmen, the debate becoming hotter, angrier and more esoteric. It was difficult for the translation spell to keep up, with Finnish words remaining where there was no substitute for the memes.

"What's kilpalaulanta?" Hermione asked Linnea, Erland's granddaughter by his second son. She had joked about a chart for what Hermione, Ophelia and Nemesia knew but she would definitely need one for the Varinens.

"Duel singing." The witch replied, pouring herself a glass of lemonade while eyeing the aquavit regretfully. "They get like this. Pick nit, pick nit, over everything. Even the purification ceremonies."

"Like flyting?" She had read about the Anglo-Saxon exchange of insults. The practise had persisted for centuries, refined into court jesting. Linnea nodded before downing her drink and standing up.

Her cousins joined her, standing with arms crossed to show they were not casting. When even Safina lost patience and joined them, the disputants stopped rather than lose the endorsement of their fellow covenanted by driving them from the table in frustration.

"Sit, my kin, please." Henrik invited. "There will be no more quarrelling." He ignored the mulish looks of Aksel and Erland. The new Head was fast learning why his father had been so dictatorial. "We will go to the grove at dawn tomorrow, all of us who are sworn, and see what messenger comes."

"How does the Horned God usually communicate with you?" Theo asked, envisaging a frigid morning inhaling psychoactive smoke. Nature spirits were seldom keen to speak with magical folk except on festal days.

"He sends animals." Aksel said pugnaciously, waiting for the soft boy to complain. Teuvo liked girls with delicate hands and pampered bodies, lazy bitches good only for spending money. They didn't keep the old ways. He didn't expect the little bastard to be any better.

"That is interesting." Hermione spoke with brittle politeness. She didn't like the old wizard's tone. Theo was prepared to dedicate himself for life for these people who couldn't bestir themselves to go to his mother's funeral. She wasn't going to let that sneer pass. "Orpheus and I are Animagi. What sort of animals does Nyyrikki send?"

"Foxes, usually." Safina answered for her brother. He might be the senior member of their House but she held the keys and wards. If he crossed her, he'd be sleeping in a tent.

Theo knew exactly what Hermione was thinking. They rose simultaneously and changed into their Animagus forms. Smugly. Hermione sat on her haunches with her absurdly bushy tail curled around her feet while Theo stood on four paws with ears perked.

That usefully resolved the argument for the moment. The family retired for the evening. Hermione had expected to be banished to some chaste tower but the Varinens had a more pragmatic approach to social mores. She was put in the room beside Theo's then left to police her own virtue.

No besmirching was done that night, and when she woke at six Hermione decided she was not going to sit in the dark alone. For perfectly rational reasons she would be prepared to fabricate if questioned.

Theo was sitting up reading when she padded into his room. He shuffled over in the morass of blankets and eiderdowns to make room for her. Hermione settled in with her own book, which was how one of the girls found them when she was sent to collect them for their ablutions.

Bathing was done in three stages; a quick tepid shower to rinse before joining the family in a communal sauna. Hermione sat sweating as her hair expanded into a riotous nimbus. Her curls deflated only marginally when she dunked herself in the icy outdoor pool.

She still looked like a rusalka when bundled in warm clothing to trek with the Varinens to the sacred grove. They went first by boat to a large island, one of the thousands in Lake Saimaa, then hiked into the woods.

The scent of pine, mist and looming snow filled her nose. It was worse once she changed into fox form as she had an overwhelming urge to sniff everything. Hermione and Theo scampered about as the argument of wizards stood waiting.

Theo was idly chewing on a pine cone as he was quite peckish when a third fox sauntered into the rune-stone edged clearing. The newcomer was male and the two tods sized each other up, bristling. The red fox was bigger than Theo with fur as bright orange as the dawn. When he snapped at the Arctic fox, the vixen pounced on him.

The three foxes rolled around in the dirt, half fighting, half playing until the red tod got bored and trotted back into the trees. Theo and Hermione looked at each other then at the Varinens, who were apparently quite amused by their antics. The consensus was positive so the witches and wizards turned to go.

Over breakfast, Henrik explained. Nyyrikki either could not or chose not to manifest himself except on sacred days, when new members of the covenant would be presented to him and rituals performed. Otherwise, the animals spoke for him. If they showed. Sometimes they did not.

"Ravens come if there will be a death. Serpents for knowledge. Foxes for wisdom." Henrik was relieved they had received a clear reply. There was some conflict, yes, but Orpheus and Ophelia were accepted. "When my father went to the circle to apologise to Nyyrikki, a bear chased him out of the grove then crapped on the stones."

"A very clear statement of displeasure." Theo remarked as he bisected the pancake-crepe-custard thing on his plate. It had blueberries in it. He planned to eat half a dozen.

The Varinens thawed somewhat after the approval of the fox in the grove. Teuvo was not mentioned anywhere in Theo's or Hermione's hearing and the one query Theo made of Karina was silenced firmly by Henrik. Their House had many daughters already. They did not need one from the selfish wretch.

They didn't need a competent librarian either as the family already had several. The cavernous library was the domain of Ilmari, Aksel's son, ably assisted by his unmarried daughters Hella and Maaret. There was even an up-to-date index, which after the higgledy-piggledy approach of the Hogwarts Library made both time-travellers nearly jump for joy.

Not that any jumping or all that much joy was permitted in the precinct of learning. A mien of sober scholarly endeavour was expected. Theo and Hermione had no trouble with that. They resolved to spend as much time as they could devouring the books on offer.

Their reading was curtailed by the purification rituals necessary to attune Theo to the covenant and to assist Hermione in being receptive.

Neck deep in a hot bath of geraniums, Clary sage, and chamomile Hermione cast the translation charm then asked why she was being brewed like herbal tea. Linnea added a handful of juniper berries and shrugged.

"It helps." She poured them both a glass of lemonade before sitting on the cedar surround of the sunken bath. Hermione might have felt embarrassed except there was so much steam in the bathhouse she couldn't see her own hands when she lifted them out of the water. All the Finnish witch would see of her was a towel wrapped head.

"What exactly?" She wasn't going to make any assumptions about for what she was being prepared. Theo had it worse. The Varinen men had been taking him out for runs in the woods and swims in the chilly lake in between anointing him everywhere with strange unguents. Absolutely everywhere.

"Nervousness." Linnea sighed. "I chose to go into the woods. My own decision. My father is a second son of the son of a second son, so my tie to the covenant is distant. I did not need to help." She loosened her blouse and patted her face with a towel as she sweated. "But Hella and Maaret went to Nyyrikki. It seemed selfish not to go too."

"What does that mean? To go to the woods, to the Horned God? Do you have a ritual marriage to him?" Hermione asked, very interested and completely certain she would not be doing the same. However much a spirit of fertility might tempt her, she was not going to ride a stag.

"Quite the opposite of marriage. The men of our family must join the covenant. They run with Nyyrikki and keep his rites. Their wives are blessed but not touched by the spirit." She had no high opinion of the wives of the House. Her own mother had stayed long enough to bear a child before moving to Helsinki. Her father had been relieved to see her go. "The Varinen women may leave the family to marry into another. All my kinswomen between Safina and Hella did. Respectably and with our blessings."

"But you didn't." Hermione prompted when Linnea went quiet.

"I am not the only one. We do not have to marry. We can join the covenant." She sipped her lemonade and thought about the choice she had made eight years ago after Hella had her third daughter. "Our magic is not male. It is not in harmony with Nyyrikki. We cannot join in his rites. But we can lie with him and renew his magic."

"And do you do a lot of renewing?" There probably wasn't tact enough in the world to ask politely how often the Varinen witches went into the woods.

"Only if we want to!" Linnea laughed at the girl's red face. "We give our virginity to him. He is gentle and virile and it is good. Daunting, yes, but good." She hadn't suffered. The experience of mating with the Horned God, becoming his earthly goddess was intense. Sacred and soul shaking. "But bearing his daughters is hard. Safina, Hella, Maaret and I have only done it once each. My grandfather's grandfather's sister gave Nyyrikki three babies but died birthing the third. It costs to make flesh for a spirit."

"Why did you?" Hermione tried to keep the censure and discomfort out of her voice. She shouldn't be squeamish, she told herself, this was old magic. Very old and traditional and pre-dating all of her modern qualms.

"It depends on the witch." She shrugged again. "Safina chose to join the covenant because she has no use for men. Hella's affianced called off the engagement after the scandal, and she was angry. Maaret and I came of age after the covenant was broken. Our family needed us to try for sons to repair the damage."

"You can't have sons with Nyyrikki?" Hermione wished she could take notes or that pure-blood families wrote down private things like this. Diatribes against Muggles were ten to a Knut but old magic remained locked away or as oral tradition only. "Or ask to adopt one of the sons of the women who got married?"

"Nyyrikki can sire sons but not with human women. We can only make what is within our flesh to make." Linnea wished it were otherwise but it was not. Centuries ago when the covenant had last been violated, her ancestors had tried many ways to mend it including turning a man into a woman to carry a son. The unfortunate wizard had birthed a monster. "The sons born to our married kinswomen would have to repudiate their names, the ancestral magic of their fathers. In times past there would be spare heirs. Not any more."

Hermione did not rant about inbreeding depression and reduced fertility or the general common sense of not marrying your own cousins for the betterment of the mental and physical health of your offspring. Most of the pure-bloods she knew were only children, with the exception of the Weasleys.

That the Blacks had managed alright until the last generation before the wheels fell off was not something she was happy thinking about. Sirius and Regulus might've had kids if their lives had been different. Narcissa and Andromeda only had one child each. And so, apparently, had Bellatrix. Hermione found that last thought rather depressing. She had been much happier when she'd been a Granger.

After steeping long enough to prune, a variety of fragrant oils were provided for her to baste herself with until she smelled like a drunken bouquet. Very heavy on the rose for the heart chakra. Jasmine for fertility. More geranium. Hermione worked a lot of it into her hair to counteract the steam.

When she finally got Theo alone to talk to him, they had to open a window as the combined heady scent of their persons made both of them want to sneeze.

"Just as well the presentation is outdoors." Theo thought he smelled like a gym bag that had been beaten with pine boughs and did not take offence when Hermione shifted away from him.

"Are you prepared to repudiate the name of Nott? I've been chatting with the Varinen women. Don't have any of the egg drink, by the way. If it does to you what it did to me, you'll have your own towel rack." Hermione fanned herself, still rather warm from the restorative beverage. She wasn't much of a drinker and had downed a glass on an empty stomach thinking it was a milkshake.

"My adoptive father, the uncles and sundry cousins have mentioned that casually once or thrice." He rubbed his knee where he'd skinned it during one of the endless runs through the forest. He'd healed the graze almost without a thought. There was a lot of ambient magic in the Varinen land. The covenant was much stronger than he had supposed.

"They're really serious about this." She was sufficiently worried she didn't feel ungrateful when she cast the Muffliato. While the Varinens had been very hospitable, they wanted something in return very badly.

"I know." Theo folded his hands strategically in his lap. Saunas, exercise and swimming in the lake had definitely stimulated his circulation. "We may have to give them what they want."


	28. Byssine

Hermione made a little promise to herself standing in the snow. Next time she participated in ritual magic, it would involve underpants. Specifically, her wearing them. And sensible shoes. The candles she could take or leave but she was absolutely certain about the knickers.

At least she had a robe. Poor Theo was only wearing a sarong around his waist. It probably wasn't called a sarong but she'd been too uncomfortable walking through the forest in a linen bathrobe to ask any questions.

The Varinens sworn to the covenant had escorted them with wands drawn and torches high. The fire was an important part of the rite, as were the garlands of ivy and platters of food. The festival of Kekri gave succour to the restless dead.

It was not, in all honestly, giving much succour to Hermione. As the sun set she became more and more convinced they were being watched. When the shadows started moving, her knuckles went white on her wand as memories of Dementors froze her blood.

It wasn't Dementors. Or Inferi. Or Death Eaters. Or any of the too familiar terrors she could name. It started with squirrels. Beady little eyes bright in the darkness. Then pine martens, beavers and numerous small rodents. A lynx. Hares and hedgehogs. Hermione smiled when she spotted an otter peeking out from under the legs of a doe.

If Nyyrikki spoke through animals, he had a lot to say tonight. The Varinen men stripped down, painting themselves with ochre and fat while the women arranged the offerings around the mossy stones daubing the runes with mead and milk.

Hermione felt magic shiver up her spine, dispelling the warming charm she had covertly cast on herself. She edged closer to Theo as the mist rose. The other witches and wizards became shapes in the fog, sounds dimmed and an ethereal sense of otherness stole over them.

The scent came first. Woodsy and sweaty, a sweet sort of musk with notes of blood and earth and rain. Hermione closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. She jerked when wax from the candle she was holding splattered her hand. The wick had blown out, Theo's too, leaving them in silvery gloom.

There was a man standing a few paces away from them. Naked with lean muscles and long limbs, a nine-pointed star painted in red on his chest. He had dark hair swept back from the rack of antlers growing proudly from his head. That wasn't the only thing growing proudly either.

"Honestly, must you?" Hermione demanded, looking away from him when she noticed his erection.

"Yes, woman." Nyyrikki laughed, a sound like birdsong. "You come to me."

"I do not." She said firmly. "I am here with him."

"She's mine." Theo attested, equally firmly. "I would have her for wife, to husband and trust." He spoke the ritual phrase trying not to shift into a duelling stance. Offending the Horned God now was not part of the plan. "I ask for your blessing and your covenant."

"Oh, you have it, boy." The verdant spirit touched a hand to his chest then to Theo's, where a nine-pointed star bloomed over his heart. "As easily done as that, son of Night."

"That's it?" Hermione was disappointed. She had hoped to learn more, to see how the Varinens had been bound. Was she denied sight of the sacred mystery because she was a woman or because she was not herself willing to join the covenant? Nyyrikki chuckled.

"I brought you here through the crossroads, from trod to trod. Why would I reject you now?" He leant down and picked a pale rock from the ground, tossing it in his hand. "You would have looked for it all your days at the Founders' Fort and not found this little stone."

"So all this is your fault?" Theo inquired with deceptive calm. He had his wand and he had often gone hunting with his father. There were stag heads decorating the feasting hall at Nott Manor. Room could be made for one more.

"This is your grandfather's fault. He neglected his vows. He let the ties between us wither as the grove withered without the sons he would have had." Nyyrikki's dark eyes flashed bright as a pyre. "I gave him part of myself and he took it away, letting the flame die to cinders."

"You couldn't forgive him? Choose another? The Varinens have all sworn to you." And what about my mother? Theo didn't shout that last question at the Horned God. He kept that hurt inside.

"They sustain me. Through them the magic of this place persists, but I cannot split myself into too many parts." Nyyrikki shook his head. "You both knew a man who carved himself into pieces. Too many pieces."

"You made Teuvo into a horcrux?" Hermione understood the reference but not how it might be done. To make a horcrux, someone had to die. That was how you shattered your own soul.

"Of sorts. I am sidhe. All my being is my spirit, not just a ghost inside meat like yours." He ran a hand down his arm and his skin changed into glowing motes as though he was made of stars. "I trusted Teuvo and he betrayed me. I cannot choose another until what he took from me is returned. I need a son of his line."

"How long would you have waited? What if I had been a girl?" Theo struggled to keep his temper. He understood that magic was impartial. It lived by its own laws. Abide and thrive, resist and perish. But his mother had been sold into marriage at seventeen. A vessel, nothing more.

"I waited as long as I needed to wait. You would have died childless, shut up with your books and your loneliness. This path is better." Nyyrikki circled his hands in a figure of eight, tracing a glowing line between Theo and Hermione. "Through her, we will grow."

"What about my choice? What about my life?" Hermione railed against the casual reweaving of her fate.

"You were necessary. I needed a witch already tangled in time. Someone who had enough give in their threads I could move them." The Lord of the Hunt met her glare with tranquillity. "Your life was happy, is that what you want to hear? You marry the Weasley, bear him two children and learn of your true birth when your daughter makes a rune tablet for her schooling."

"And what happens then?" She couldn't look at Theo as she asked but she felt him tense.

"You are no longer happy. You and the Weasley argue. You both remember old pain you had buried. He leaves you." Nyyrikki spoke gently. "He means only to give himself more air to breathe, to think on what he wants, and he returns."

"But I don't take him back. Not a second time." Hermione believed the certainty in his tone, recalling what Professor Vablatsky had told them. And the promise she had made to herself after Ron had asked her to forgive him for abandoning her and Harry. One do over, that was all she would tolerate.

"No." The witch was proud. She craved reliability most in her mates. Her husband leaving her to struggle through her pain alone reminded her too much of her mother's malice. Nyyrikki had followed her thread and had thought its shrivelling a waste. "You find peace at the end with your blood but not with him."

"If you brought us here, can you send us home?" If they couldn't return, it was pointless to know about the life they couldn't return to live. Theo wouldn't mire Hermione here for the sake of not being alone.

"I can. The roads of faerie are tricksome but I can return you to the place exactly." Nyyrikki could hear their unspoken question. "There will only be a small difference in time, a little more than a season, and you will not age the years between now and then."

"What's the price?" Theo inquired after a long look shared with Hermione. They wanted to leave but neither without the other. And they both knew it wouldn't be free.

"The promise of a son." His smile was as sweet as maple sap.

"Just the promise? You don't want us to sleep together now?" Hermione was a little relieved and a lot suspicious. At her question, his fey smile grew.

"I want you to rut now like you are both in season. I want for him to fill your belly with all the sons that would have been, and I want it so much I should compel you." He raised and lowered his sculpted shoulders. Hermione disliked herself for staring at him intently as he moved. She hoped she didn't lick her lips. Yes, indeed, he could compel. "But want does not rule me."

"You'll trust us with a vow? Teuvo broke his." Theo shifted awkwardly as he stiffened. The damn towel he was wearing did nothing to hide his reaction to the Horned God's kindled magic.

"He did but I am reminded Safina did not." Nyyrikki spoke ruminatively as though rethinking something that had happened just the other day. "Her father would not give her another choice than marriage or covenant. She submitted her body to me and thanked me, for all it made her feel less than a woman not more. I didn't understand then but now I do so I can repay that debt by not making another woman grit her teeth and hide her tears."

"I would not make Hermione do that with me." His anger was back. Theo felt keyed up, aggressive and defensive at the same time. He wanted to take, have, enjoy, be with, love Hermione so much. So many different ways. She was his. But. She was his solely because she wanted to be his.

"You wouldn't have to." The laughter now was mocking like the bark of a fox. The Horned God smoothed his gaze over the witch as intimate as a caress then grinned. "She'll go willingly."

"You are an arse." Hermione hissed.

"So it has been said." Nyyrikki chuckled. "I know the difference between a woman meant for me and a woman meant for another. So I demand nothing of your woman, little brother. But I ask for a promise that when you want it, you have a son together and you bring that son to me."

"I promise." The witch said when the wizard remained silent.

"You're sure? You don't have to. I could find someone else. One of my cousins, perhaps." Theo expected he would be given his pick of the Varinen women without protest. He could probably have a harem of volunteers all keen to help him keep his vow. That prospect made him feel ill.

"I'm sure." Hermione was mostly sure. "We're in this together."

"Then I promise too." He dropped his candle to reach for her hand. Hermione held tight, determined to see this through. Nyyrikki spread his arms as though embracing the grove, the opalescent fog dancing around him.

"You have until dawn. The mists will return you to when you should be." He stepped back into the gloom, became just a shape in the haze then disappeared entirely.

"You're right." Theo grimaced. "He is an arse." He adjusted his wrap as the cold began to creep back and he recalled he was in a forest in November wearing a tablecloth. He felt like a house elf. "At least we have our wands."

"We have rather more than that." Hermione dug a hand into her elaborate crown of braids and flowers. The Varinen women had collectively given up on trying to do something with her hair, leaving the arrangement to Hermione. She pulled her little beaded bag out of her curls. "I came prepared."

"I do love you." The words were out of his mouth followed closely by a kiss. They might have gone tumbling onto the greensward to consummate their lust except a pine needle jabbed Theo in the foot and Hermione sniggered.

"I don't really fancy rolling about in mossy dirt, do you?" She pulled a tent out of her little bag. It was a new and Muggle. The Golden Trio had ritually burnt the old musty one that had been their home for miserable months. This tent was a pop up shower cubby in a nothing shade of grey.

"It looks like a cloth outhouse." Theo remarked as Hermione unzipped the little shelter. He was not surprised to find she had enlarged the interior with an Extension Charm though he was a little taken aback at the well-stocked interior. "Is that a travelling potion laboratory?"

"I'm afraid so." Hermione walked over to the battered trapezoidal sea chest with one wonky leg and opened the lid. Inside was a miniature cauldron and an array of bottles. "Most ingredients don't take to shrinking well but the charms put on the travelling chests are quite stable. I got this one used so it whiffs a bit."

"I like the bookshelves." He could be in a study in a country house; a little rubbed around the edges from long use but comfortable. "I thought you said you'd unpacked all your books."

"All the magical ones, yes. Everything on the shelves in here is for entertainment. I went to Oxfam and bought whatever they had that looked interesting." She relaxed once she saw Theo wasn't going to laugh at her about her over-preparedness. She was working on it, trying to ease back a little. "I packed all your things too. I wasn't sure if we were going back. I hoped we weren't, actually."

"Me too." Theo diverted himself from the inspection of the literary collection to go to Hermione and hug her. "Let's pretend we trust the fey embodiment of nature. Come sunrise we'll be back at Hogwarts."

"I'd assumed we'd still be in Finland, just further in time." She rested her head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of him while she tried not to worry. "There's so many reasons why strolling along fairy paths is a bad idea. Quite a bit of poetry warning against it. A saga or two, as well."

"I can confidently say none of the tales mentioned a Muggle tent. Such a prosaic thing rather lowers the tone of the prose." He smirked, teasingly. She smelled of springtime with the blossoms in her hair. His hands slid down her back of their own accord until he groaned and stepped away.

"You feel it, don't you? The ritual magic." Hermione asked. She felt it herself like molten honey in her blood. Theo nodded, trying not to breathe near her.

"I feel the obligation. That antlered prat pranced off knowing the prospect is nearly a sure thing. I really want to do what he asked." He tried to think of off-putting things like Goyle doing elephant impressions in the shower but the images drifted away to be replaced by Hermione in the mist with nothing but a thin robe veiling her.

"Then let's." She held out a hand to him. "For all sorts of reasons. I feel it too." Hermione ventured a smirk of her own. "And I bet I know more contraceptive magic than he does, the smug git."

As romantic overtures went, it wasn't the most alluring but Theo laughed and took her hand. There were several bedrooms in the tent. Hermione led him to the one she thought of as hers, decorated like her room in her parents' house. She enlarged the bed then stood there, her nerve wavering.

"We could just sleep." Theo offered although he ached to touch her.

"It seems a bit, well, mundane to just have a kip after meeting a relic of folklore." Hermione took a deep breath. The ritual made the prospect of sex enticing but she was still in her right mind. And she wanted Theo. Before everything changed and they woke up in the real world. She untied the sash of her robe, letting it drop to the floor.

Theo felt all his concerns and cavils drain away at sight of her naked body. This time he could look. This time he could appreciate the softness of her, the fine perfection, the way she glared at him because he was staring. So he kissed her with all the heat he was feeling, his skin against hers.

It took her three goes to undo the knot of the sarong. Hermione persisted though, wanting nothing between them. He had said they'd still have the closeness they had in the midst of their adventure but she didn't quite believe him. Harry and Ron had drifted away from her and she away from them. The witch told herself she wouldn't mind when it happened with Theo too.

But right now she didn't have to think of that. She could lose herself in the pleasure of his mouth on hers and the shiver of anticipation that shot all the way to her toes when he kissed his way down her neck. His lips brushed the ticklish spot on her collarbone and she giggled.

They stopped long enough to cast all the contraceptive spells they knew because Seelie or not, fey were cunning. Theo intended to make real the promise of a child but right now the prospect of it was more distracting than arousing. Tomorrow was a problem he was happy to put off.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, smoothing his hands over her breasts, enthusiastic but uncertain. "Please tell me one of us knows what they're doing."

"Foreplay is important." Hermione pushed him onto the bed and joined him. "You're doing fine." She trailed her fingers down his chest, making slow circles around his nipples before kissing each peak. Theo groaned.

"I'm not going to last." He would be mortified if he spent himself before he'd even entered her. Their conversation before the vow of midsummer came to mind and he felt himself blush.

"You're eighteen. You're good for a couple of goes." She winked at him but out of kindness slid lower in the bed so she could give him a blowjob to ease his nervousness. Hermione quite liked oral sex so long as it was reciprocated. It wasn't as aggressive as full intercourse, something that had always vaguely put her off. "Relax. Try thinking of stars."

Theo only got as far as Altair when his eyes went wide. Her tongue! She was kissing him down there. He knew women did that, wanton, debauched women who the older boys boasted about knowing. It was filthy. It was so good. He moaned.

Hermione smiled against his shaft, taking him into her mouth in earnest. He came quickly from nervousness and the newness of it, and she swallowed his libation.

"Merlin!" He panted.

"Morgana." Hermione corrected, taking his hand to show him how to touch her. Theo was a quick study though his expression of fierce concentration made her want to laugh. She didn't, mostly because he was quite good at distracting her. When he tentatively tasted her, she shivered.

"Wrong?" Theo asked, looking up. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated, her mouth bee-stung full and as red as it had been in his fantasy.

"Right. Very right. Keep going." She urged, bending her knees so she could lift her hips towards him. He slid his hands under her, cupping her bum and lowered his head to the task.

It took a while for her to climax. Hermione did not mind. This was not a goal orientated activity. She could happily spend hours teaching Theo all the ways she enjoyed him touching her. Oh yes. Oh yes yes.

When Hermione shuddered and arched against him shaking, Theo knew enough to realise she was achieving orgasm. He knew women had them but he'd never seen one. The way she trembled almost begging as she reached that blissful moment he could bear to see again. Often.

After that, sex was easy. A little clumsy but they were relaxed and it felt right. It was good. Theo moved slowly at first, not wanting to hurt her. Hermione sensed his concern and rolled him onto his back so she could set their tempo. Things sped up then, gloriously.

Theo dug his fingers into her hips, pulling her down as he thrust up. It was like dancing. There was a rhythm and once they found it together everything was heady summer, the scent of wildflowers and warm earth. Watching her atop him, Theo imagined her doing the same but round with their child; a mother goddess to his horned god. He climaxed with that wish burning bright in his mind.


	29. Belligerent

They had a lot of sex that night. Hermione looked at her rumpled, flushed self in the bathroom mirror and grinned. An indecent amount of sex. She wondered what was the unit of measurement for intercourse. The Bonk, perhaps. The witch laughed at herself then filled the claw tub with water so she could soak.

Theo was still asleep and she wasn't game enough to peek outside alone. Whatever was beyond the tent flap they would face together. If Nyyrikki had sent them astray, well they'd just stiff upper lip and deal with it.

If the horny god had got them properly home and they stepped out to see Black Lake on a fine autumn day then she'd probably cry with relief.

Hermione told herself she needed to be mentally prepared for disappointment. There would be changes. It was inevitable that something would have diverged. She had given Regulus the water ring. That was a change she desperately wanted, if only to give him a chance to have any sort of life not as someone's pawn.

They could be unborn. That was a significant danger with human temporal magic, which functioned on absolutes. She had no idea if elven magic was the same. Nyyrikki's talk of threads with give made sense. Simply yanking strings into a new place risked some of them snapping. Hermione wondered if the legends of the Norns and the Fates were the results of early experiments with time spells.

She had to use a Scourgify on her feet to get off the pine sap. Her hair was a rat's nest. Hermione dunked her head under the water and cast untangling charms until she got all the mashed flowers out before towelling the mess dry. She still smelled like a florist's boudoir even after her bath.

Theo was stirring when she headed into the bedroom to get dressed. He took himself off for a wash at her urging, still half-asleep. Hermione opted for very practical clothes; uniform shoes, her one pair of trousers, a blouse and a light jumper in grey. She looked like a student enough to pass muster but not so obviously that she couldn't pretend to be otherwise if necessary.

Hermione tucked a tie into a pocket just in case. The tie was currently Slytherin green but she could charm it any colour she needed. She got out both wands. Her vine wood went up her left sleeve and the spare she'd bought in 1976 she tucked into her belt at the small of her back with a Sticking Charm.

She didn't have a bad feeling. She didn't have any sort of premonition. It was just reassuring to be paranoid. When she graduated and started looking for work, Hermione was thinking she probably should try for something restful. Possibly in a nice quiet archive somewhere.

Theo dressed much like she did and also opted for two wands. They didn't linger to have breakfast. Facing unknown magical effects on an empty stomach limited the risk of embarrassingly sicking up over your own shoes.

They stepped out of the tent, which Hermione collapsed and returned to the beaded bag as they waited for the last of the mist to dissipate.

They stood on a familiar lake shore with familiar stars twinkling down at them. Theo found Virgo, frowning. The constellations above them weren't right for September. He judged they were in April or May, which was rather more than the season off Nyyrikki had estimated.

"Another school year wasted." He would graduate in the new millennium at this rate. Theo dropped his gaze to Hermione, who was staring fixedly at the bulk of Hogwarts now becoming visible. The sky was much darker over the school. Darker and fissured with cracks as though an angry deity had smote the heavens.

Flecks of black circled the school like carrion birds, visible only when they were silhouetted against the phosphorescent wounds in the sky. Breaches in the wards, Hermione corrected herself, seeing for the second time dark magic war with the defences of Hogwarts.

"The Battle." Theo said and she nodded. Nothing more needed saying. There was only one battle.

"I'm not walking away from this." Hermione drew her wand, taking a deep breath. Her memories of the Battle of Hogwarts were fitful. Disjointed images burned into her mind by adrenalin and fear in between blurry recollections smudged by exhaustion.

"Neither am I." He drew his wand too and started casting defensive spells and the night-vision charm on her. Hermione reciprocated, both knowing the magic would be more difficult to dispel if cast on another. "I want to save Idra. Snape too, if we can."

"Fred, Tonks, Remus, everyone really." She grit her teeth as her heart thumped so fast in her chest it ached. "I don't suppose it matters now who sees us but we won't have time to explain so we should try to keep out of sight."

"The Notice-Me-Not doesn't work as well over Shield Charms." Theo had realised that in the library after the Gryffindor had grabbed him. He hadn't been focussing, which meant the charm had wavered when he moved. Too much magic not to attract attention. If they'd stayed longer in the past, he would've had time to bind a disguise into his signet ring with the heraldic spell Hermione had refined.

"Sometimes mundane ways work best." Hermione transfigured her tie into a scarf and tied it over the lower half of her face. She used a few braiding charms on her hair to get it out of the way then coloured it black. Looking this way, she could pass for a good portion of the student body.

"We can get into the castle through the dungeons." Theo covered his face too. It would help with the smoke. "Early on, a dragon crashes into the lake. I don't know what sort but it explodes when it hits the water. The blast took out a section of roof near one of the old root cellars. Floods most of the upper tunnels."

He led the way, wanting to think of anything but the hours he'd spent cowering in the dungeons trying to keep from being crushed by falling masonry. His father had given him strict orders to stay out of the fight. The Dark Lord's treatment of Draco had shown how little he cared for the heirs of his followers.

The crater caused by the dying dragon looked more like a cenote. The poor creature must have dropped almost straight down into the shallows, the paroxysm of its death causing the limestone substrata to collapse. The debris was just enough to keep the Lake from making a whirlpool but did not look stable.

"How did you know a dragon did this?" Hermione asked as they waded to the sinkhole that was, despite all appearances and common sense, a safe way into the castle.

"Bits of it washed in." Theo explained lugubriously. The remains had been just large enough to be identifiable as draconic but mostly resembled chunky salsa. He cast a Bubble-Head Charm on her and the witch returned the favour before they jumped.

The root cellar was almost completely flooded, a dam of detritus blocking the empty doorway enough that the water level in the room remained high. Hermione squeezed through the jam then neck deep in mucky water turned to help Theo pull himself through.

They had to use magic to push aside the slurry in the flooded corridor. Hermione was very glad of the Bubble-Head as the chemical stink of the dragon's innards combined with charred limestone and lake bottom silt was indescribably awful.

When they sluiced their way down a stairwell to a T-junction, Theo headed to the right, blasting open an old oak door into a dusty room. He grabbed onto a wooden counter as water rushed in with them.

"This was a kitchen when there were enough students each House had their own." Theo explained when Hermione raised an eyebrow at the knives hanging from chains strung across the ceiling. Under the Visus Noctis the blades glinted menacingly.

They didn't linger. Squelching out into a dry hallway, Theo headed first to a storeroom where he knew some of the younger students had sheltered. The hall roof would collapse sometime towards the end of the battle, trapping the children in there for more than a day without food or water.

The little Snakes were sufficiently frightened already that the arrival of two filthy strangers prompted only minor alarm. The First and Second Years followed Hermione and Theo when ordered to do so.

Muggles would have solved the difficulties of fresh air in the labyrinthine dungeons with elaborate ventilation systems. Wizards solved it by constructing rotunda with wind enchantments conjured in the domes periodically along the corridors, usually at intersections.

The newer ones were much plainer than the ostentatiously frescoed examples near the stairs to the Entrance Hall but they had the advantage of reinforced ceilings. Which Theo and Hermione knew because Hogwarts: A History detailed the repairs done to the castle after series of earthquakes between 1788 and 1801, caused by two feuding lowland covens.

The rotunda would endure even if the corridors around it collapsed. Hermione set up the Muggle tent and herded the students inside while Theo ranged up and down the halls calling for others.

It was amazing what a confident, authoritative voice could do. A dozen more students emerged from their hiding places at Theo's summons. A few turned their noses up at the Muggle shelter but did not refuse the offer of safety and comfort.

When they had cleared their intersection, Theo hurried down the northern corridor towards a narrow staircase that lead to the third floor. They checked doors as they went. Most were firmly barricaded and the occupants keen to tell anyone knocking to sod off.

"Where did she die?" Hermione asked as her companion stopped at the foot of the stairs to peer up it.

"Not sure, exactly. Zabini said he slid in her blood on the steps but he was taunting me for hiding during the fight." Theo spoke quite calmly though it had been at that moment he had decided never to speak to his fellow Slytherin ever again. No word, no invitation, no letter or glance. Blaise did not exist.

"Steps." She noted the word. "Not stairs. Cho saw Zabini heading for the Boathouse before we had to fall back from the Viaduct Courtyard." The DA had tried to keep an eye on the older Slytherins in the early stages of the battle, on the assumption they would aid their parents. It had soon become too chaotic to keep an eye on anything.

"The Boathouse Steps." He looked to her for confirmation and was met with a crisp nod. Hermione was sure, as Cho had given the information as part of her statement to the Ministry in preparation for the Death Eater trials. She had helped coordinate the student testimonies.

They ran. When they got to the courtyard, the animated knights were still holding off giants on the Viaduct. They kept running, not wanting to be noticed and not wanting to be stopped.

The Dementors were throwing themselves ravenously towards anything that was moving. Hermione used her Patronus to clear a path while Theo guarded her back. They made it across the cloister to the cliff edge, pausing for breath there and to throw themselves to the ground as a huge boulder crashed into the rock face below them.

"The last boats have left." Hermione lifted her head, crawling forward to look over the balustrade. She could see little shapes bobbing on the dark water at the edge of her vision. The switchback stairs did not look inviting, nor did the figures on broomsticks flying low and fast.

A tentacle broke the obsidian surface of the lake and swatted two of the broom riders. One went careening into the water, the other cartwheeled, trying frantically to right itself before smashing into the stone steps just below the first landing.

The other flyers scattered, ascending out of the reach of the giant squid and becoming motes in the darkness. Theo and Hermione shuffled forward cautiously out of the shelter of the cloister. No curses came their way. It seemed there were more tempting targets penned in the courtyard.

The Death Eater's body was curled into a ball, the last conscious instinct against pain. Blood ran down the steps but when they reached the black clad form, she was still breathing. It was Idra Deverill.

"Episkey." Hermione cast a healing charm quickly to stabilise her as Theo gently turned her onto her back so they could assess her injuries. Red foam bubbled out of her mouth.

There was so much damage Hermione simply kept casting, starting with the cranial fractures and working down to the broken ribs. Theo cut Idra out of her clothes so they could set the bones properly. Halfway through, she tried to resist until he pulled the bandanna down.

"Lie still and let us help you." Theo ordered, his hands covered in her blood. Idra's eyes opened with shock, her pupils so dilated he doubted she could focus enough to see clearly. "You're safe." He reassured and when she tried to talk, he sent her to sleep with a spell. It didn't take much to knock her out. If they hadn't found her, she would've been dead in minutes.

"I've done what I can. She'll survive but there's a lot of bruising and bone fragments. She'll need care." Hermione made an effort to see a First Year Ravenclaw not a Death Eater but it was hard. Her friends were fighting for their lives against people like Idra.

"I'll call an elf." He clasped his signet ring and concentrated. The summoning should be far easier than usual as there was so much magic it had burned holes in reality. But not one of the Nott elves appeared. He didn't feel any response at all. "The fucking covenant."

"Let me try." She didn't cut her hand. She reached out with her will alone because she really wanted something to happen right now immediately if not sooner. "Kreacher!"

And the wizened elf appeared.

"Mistress calls!" He wailed, almost beside himself. "At last! At last! Kreacher waited so long."

"Please, stop." Hermione winced at the elf's slavish gratitude. "We need to get Idra medical attention. Can you take her to Grimmauld Place?"

"Of course, Mistress." Kreacher nodded and scuttled forward to take the unconscious woman's hand. "Master Regulus will heal her."

He disappeared with Idra before Hermione could ask any questions. She stared at the empty space where he had been and took in a shaky breath. Master Regulus. That at least had gone right.

"Dolohov kills Remus. Bellatrix kills Tonks." She wasn't sure of exactly when and where. The first she'd known of their deaths was in the Great Hall when the wounded were carried in. And the dead. Hermione's hand tightened on her wand. "We have to hurry. Where's her broom?"

Idra's Comet had come off marginally better than its rider and was just intact enough to fly. The front third of the shaft had snapped and a good portion of bristles were gone. Hermione got on the damn thing, grabbed Theo around the waist and screwed her eyes shut. Everything after that was his problem.

The solution was to fly sideways, rising obliquely as the broom's lift was intact but its steering was hopeless. Forward momentum made it corkscrew madly. Theo discarded any attempt at finesse. He got them up to a fourth floor balcony by scraping them along the stone wall, fighting the broom every inch. It was fast though. Theo was sure he'd left his stomach behind on the Boathouse Steps.

Hermione staggered off the broom when they lurched to a halt. The Comet shot off wildly the instant Theo's grip loosened. He drew his wand, pulled up his bandanna and commended himself to Valhalla. The air crackled with magic from curses and counter-curses. They were in the thick of it now.

There was no strategy to their advance. They hexed their way forward relying on conjured birds to intercept Killing Curses. Theo felt no compunction in using lethal spells on the Death Eaters. They certainly weren't hesitating, and he knew his father was with Tom. Everyone he cared about was a pace behind him, fighting like a virago.

A streak of black smoke crashed in through the window a few feet from them, coalescing quickly into a wizard. It was not alone. Glass shattered in an ear-splitting cadence. Intellectually, Hermione knew that meant the protective dome over Hogwarts had collapsed. Instinctively, she fired off Expulso Curses.

Some of the black streaks blew right back out the windows. Some had formed enough for the Death Eaters to be sent sprawling by the force of her spell. Theo used Sectumsempra against them, expecting Snape's curse to open up the still materialising wizards like over-ripe fruit.

It did.

Hermione stepped over the slashed mess of a man she vaguely recognised. She looked closer. Prospero Mulciber. She didn't look again. She kept casting, aware she was smiling. Nietzsche would've been proud.


	30. Bulwark

When the windows blew out, Remus came running to hold off the assault. Theo and Hermione fell back from the arcade to join him. The three of them fought in a line two paces apart, trying to keep from being flanked, isolated or targeted by the same area spell. They didn't have time to talk. They shouted curses and the Death Eaters shouted back.

As more dark wizards arrived, Theo made a tactical decision. Rather than be overrun when the odds tipped against them, he opted to level the playing field. Literally. He shot a Bombarda Maxima at the ceiling and brought it down on the Death Eaters.

Remembering Theo's trick from Hogsmeade, Hermione dropped to the ground as dust billowed. She sent an arc of Slicing Hexes low and heard someone swear in pain as a flash of green light shot obliquely across their front, coming from a narrow side corridor. The Killing Curse barely missed Remus, who retaliated with a Confringo causing more of the roof to collapse.

Hermione picked herself up cautiously, moving away from the crumbling edge of the stonework. Remus cast a Homenum Revelio to see if any of their foes had survived. His spell showed nothing but faint traces dimming as he watched.

"Fenrir Greyback is on the ground floor, Professor." Theo lied. Well, not so much as lied as guessed. Greyback liked to hunt near his prey's den, which would be the Great Hall.

"Is he now?" Remus heard the unspoken suggestion that a werewolf should deal with a werewolf. He didn't recognise the two Slytherins. They wore their House colours across their faces. They were old enough that he had likely taught them but he couldn't smell anything over the blood and the smoke from the fires on the lower floors.

Hermione watched Professor Lupin hesitate then hurry away presumably towards the ground floor. She cast a Muffliato as soon as he was out of sight. This was not a discussion she wanted him to overhear.

"You sent him away because Bellatrix would target him." She was fairly sure but she wanted confirmation. And she wanted a chance to catch her breath. They had just killed half a dozen people. Hermione wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Madam Lestrange would kill him first, in front of her niece." Theo spoke in between deep breaths. He should be colder. Emotionless. On the rare occasions his father had discussed their vocation with him, his words had been shorn of any feeling. A day at work. "This is a fucking awful job."

"Yes." Hermione couldn't say anything else. They weren't done yet. "Was that Dolohov under there?" She gestured to the corridor from where the Killing Curse had come.

"Do you want to look?" He would do it if she insisted. Hermione stared at the fallen stonework and the gritty red rivulet trickling out from under it.

"No." They should look. They should make sure. "No." Hermione wiped her hands on her trousers. "Let's find Tonks."

Bellatrix made it easy. They found her on the sixth floor near the Room of Rewards. She was shrieking and flinging spells with abandon, clearly having a wonderful time scattering all resistance before her.

Theo and Hermione shrank themselves into fox form to peek around the corner behind the demented witch. She had bailed up a group of students behind a hasty barricade and was laughing as they cowered.

They were at the junction of two corridors with Bellatrix having an excellent view of anyone approaching either straight towards her or to her right. The students had nowhere to run as she could pick them off as they fled or tried to dash past her.

The two Animagi slunk back, returning to human shape. They both knew they were adept and intense spell-casters. Good duellists too. Theo caught Hermione's eye. She shook her head, to which he nodded. They were good. But not good enough to be confident of taking down Bellatrix Lestrange in a straight up fight.

"We need a distraction. I can kill her." Of that, Theo was certain. He wanted the woman dead. From the first time he had met her, he had been frightened and disgusted by her. A world without the mad witch was a better world.

"And I can distract her. You'll have to be quick." Hermione released her hair from its braids and shook it out. Her curls twisted and fluffed, and still black from the colour charm looked very like Bellatrix's.

Not giving herself time to doubt or to dwell on matricide, Hermione bared her face and stepped quietly around the corner into view.

"Mother!" She called.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Bellatrix was already turning, wand already raised. She had a moment of hesitation, not even a breath of a pause, when she saw the girl. Just like she had imagined. Dark haired, pale and slim, a Lestrange but with her colouring. Was this a lie?

"Avada Kedavra." Theo didn't hesitate.

Bellatrix Lestrange fell inanimate. Her momentum turned her as she crumpled so she ended on her side on the floor, hands lax. Hermione did not approach until she had summoned the witch's wand. It was new, a Gregorovitch, and did nothing when her fingers closed around it. No personality, no rebellion, only sullen obedience. A stolen wand.

"We should make sure she's dead." Hermione heard herself speak and nodded in agreement with her own words. It was a sensible thing to do with a witch so steeped in the Dark Arts. She walked forward puppetting herself and rolled the empty body onto its back.

Unlit eyes stared. Hermione had seen the flames of her madness close up. Bellatrix had a devil on both shoulders. She had been a fanatic before years in Azkaban had honed her. Now the fire had been extinguished.

The sound of cheering shocked her back into focus. The students behind the barricade were all standing, jumping up and down, exultant they were still alive. Hermione covered her face as Theo grabbed her arm. They hurried away before anyone asked them any questions.

Ducking into Professor Slughorn's office, Theo crossed to the fireplace to be tidily sick in the wood basket. His body warred between nausea and arousal. He was sick with what he had done but the rush of the Dark Magic could not be denied. The first time he had killed someone and what he wanted most was to fuck Hermione on Slughorn's Persian rug.

Hermione subsided onto one of the leather sofas. Her voice echoed in her own head, shouting at herself to do more, to keep fighting, to get back out there and save more people. To solider grimly on to prove she was worthy of belonging.

But she didn't have to do that an more, did she? Hermione sneered at her own bitter thoughts. She was a pure-blood. No one could argue with her place in the magical world. She had every right to exist and that bitch Umbridge would eat her own wand when she went public with the truth.

Hermione realised she was hyperventilating. She put a hand over her mouth, pinching her nose shut as her body fought itself. A shock reaction. She recognised it from previous episodes. Infrequent, fortunately. She was lucky in that regard.

"I can't do this much longer." Theo rinsed his mouth with some of Slughorn's brandy, spitting it out into the fireplace. The next swig he swallowed. Bringing the bottle over to Hermione, he sat down beside her.

"This is much harder the second time." Hermione took a long drink then gasped for air. "Knowing what happens makes it worse. I think Colin's already dead. He was cold when they brought him to the Great Hall. And others. I know all the names of the casualties but I don't know where they are or when they're going to die. And I feel so guilty."

"I'd kill her again. The guilt is mine." Theo took the bottle back and glared at the label. His father drank this stuff. Drank a fair bit of it. He replaced the bottle on the sideboard.

"Not her. I'm glad she's dead. So relieved. It's everyone else. And we're just sitting here." Her breath hitched and she started to gasp again. "It just hit me that I'm downstairs running around like a mad hamster."

"Hamster?" He didn't understand the reference and wondered if she'd taken a blow to the head.

"Pet rodents. They have cages with little exercise wheels in them. Round and round. They can get obsessive about running in circles. Going nowhere." Hermione put her head in her hands. Theo put an arm around her. Neither moved as they weathered the shock of their return to the future and the consequences of when.

The witch had more practice prodding her exhausted self into action. She cast a braiding charm to give herself hair fit for battle and braced her feet on the floor, mentally psyching herself up.

"I'm with Ron and Harry when Fred dies." Hermione picked one problem to solve at a time. No sense panicking over the whole seething morass. "There's an explosion. I'm not sure what caused it."

"If we can find him, we can charm him against concussion. I know almost nothing about this battle. I did what my father..." Theo's voice faded. His father was probably in the castle by now. "I could warn him. Tell him Tom loses. Make him run so he isn't sent to Azkaban."

"Would he listen?" She didn't protest. She wasn't going to forbid Theo his father when her parents were oblivious on the other side of the world.

"No." He said after a long silence. "Not to me. He stopped really seeing me after Mother died. He'd think me a coward and a blood traitor." Theo stood up. "Protection for the Weasleys then we try for Professor Snape."

"Harry sees Tom order Lucius Malfoy to find him. That's just after the spiders, just after Fred." Hermione got up too. They had a plan. Or an agenda. A little structure in the chaos. "I know where they are, roughly. Let's go."

They kept to the quiet byways as much as possible, cursing from the shadows and running. So much of both her experiences of this battle was sprinting away from things and people wanting to kill her. Duelling practice should really be done while jogging, Hermione thought randomly as she crouched behind a fallen statue.

She guessed they were on the second floor. It was difficult to tell with so much debris. The smoke was thick, coal black with a chemical sting. Theo tapped her with his wand, casting another Bubble-Head Charm. She reciprocated, thankful her eyes were no longer watering.

Clear vision didn't make what she was seeing any better. It looked more like a riot than a spell battle. A big Death Eater she thought was Rowle picked up his opponent physically and threw him out a window. Theo shot him in the back with a wracking hex. He dropped to his knees bellowing in pain. They edged forward.

Fighting back to back, Hermione spotted a redhead and nudged Theo towards him. They were close enough to identify him as Percy, tie askew, when Fred scrambled over to him. So alive, laughing as he bounced a Death Eater off the pillars like a pinball.

Hermione cast a protective charm on him, ducking down when he spun around after feeling the spell hit him. Then Pius Thicknesse was there and Percy gave notice and the Golden Trio rushed forward and the wall exploded.

Theo had already been on the ground, dropping flat when the Weasleys turned. The twins had often targeted him for pranks and he didn't want to be tempted to return the favour. He was doing this for Hermione.

Hermione, who had been beside him when the blast tore everything part. Dust, stone, shards of glass swept over them like a pyroclastic flow. He could see nothing, hear nothing.

Then he hit the floor, bowled halfway across the hall. Theo rolled instinctively. His Duelling tutor had been fond of sweeping him off his feet so he had learned to tumble. His gymnastic prowess saved him from cracking his skull against the flagstones, leaving him bruised all over but functional.

His witch lay sprawled, ashen as a ghost from the dust, breathing but insensate. Theo scrambled over to her, distorted voices echoing weirdly. Picking up Hermione he nearly cried when she flopped against him. She was out cold. He was alone.

For her sake, he scanned the room for the others. Bloody Potter and his Weasel lackey, both upright. The Mudblood being practical already casting an Episkey on the redhead prone at her feet. The other one, the twin they'd protected, was picking himself up off the floor.

Good enough, Theo thought, and Apparated away.

He was thinking only of home. Theo landed in his bedroom at Nott Manor and collapsed onto the soft green carpet. On his first holiday break he had charmed his suite in his House colours. The green was a bit soupy and the grey pallid but he was home. They were safe.

He cast a healing charm on Hermione, the strongest he knew, then lay down beside her and let the room spin. It had been a long day. Had it? When had this day started? When they had first left Hogwarts, weeks before? At sunset in the cold pine forest with the mist veiling the trees? When they woke in the little tent bonded to each other in the old ways?

"Snape." Hermione wheezed. She had opened her eyes on a vaulted ceiling with green rosettes. Applied with an inexpert hand, the colour had smudged into the plaster. Not Hogwarts. This room smelled of cedar, books and boy.

"He can take his chances." Theo wasn't going back there for anyone.

She managed a protest before she started coughing, rolling onto her side to choke and gasp and spit up blood. From the way her ribs ached she had probably broken some and bitten her tongue. Her left hip throbbed too. Dull pain she recognised as the aftermath of magical healing. She was alright. They were safe.

"I'll send an elf." Theo dragged himself to the door of his room to shout into the hallway. He might not be able to summon one any more but they could still hear him. And abase themselves. Why must they always grovel?

The Nott elf listened to his disjointed instructions then took itself off to find Professor Snape to warn him and stay with him when he ignored the warning but hidden then save the ungrateful arse but tell absolutely no one who sent it to help.

"Harry will trust an elf." Hermione panted, taking deep slow breaths despite the soreness in her chest. "He'll listen."

"I don't come home until past noon. Mid-afternoon, I think. We can stay until then. But I'll notice us in the Manor." He was too spent to make clear which of his selves was doing the noticing and which the thinking. Hermione didn't comment. They crawled into his large bed still in their filthy clothes and slept.


	31. Bassinet

Hermione woke at six o'clock in the morning very unhappy with her own punctuality. She rolled over then paused as what she saw around her did not tally with any of her previous accommodations. Not the tent, not her room in the Varinen castle, not the hotel room in Trier, not the Slytherin dorms, not her bedroom at her parents' house. Somewhere new.

Somewhere new fortunately had an ensuite. Hermione made herself comfortable. She was still in the bath scrubbing when Theo stripped off and joined her. There was more than enough space in the tub. They could've had a water polo match.

"So where do we go?" Theo asked once he had scoured himself enough he didn't smell of fear. Scourgify did not get rid of that stink. Hot water, fine milled soap and gentle company did.

"Provence." Hermione had been fretting about that as she picked bits of stone out of her hair. The splinters would come out after a good soak and the bruises would fade. She was whole but still out of place. "We hide ourselves in Muggle France until our other selves go to Hogwarts then we close the time loop by showing up just after they leave. It'll be safe to tell people, then."

"Not many people." Theo inspected his knees. He'd skinned both of them some time last night. He hadn't noticed. "Not until we know how much has changed. We can get the Prophet clandestinely."

Clandestine described well their exit from Nott Manor. Theo arranged everything as it should be in his bedroom. They ate in the kitchen and he forbade the house elves from mentioning their visit to anyone. They agreed readily, very nervous around him and anxious to be rid of the not-Master.

They Apparated to Caen then Marseilles, to the Pension Allegre near the Old Port. The hotel was small, one of many terraces and happy to give them a good deal on four months' stay. The city founded in the sixth century BCE lay before them full of history and ripe for discovery. Theo and Hermione went back to bed.

The two of them slept a lot over the next week, wrung out and depleted mentally and magically. They took the early morning alarms off their wands so they could revel in sleeping in. Slowly, they recuperated.

They strolled through Marseilles hand in hand, filling in some gaps in their unconventional courtship. They spoke in French as they wanted to distance themselves from Britain for a while. They ate seafood sur la plage.

When her period didn't arrive by the end of May, Hermione bought a pregnancy test from a pharmacy and used it in a museum bathroom while Theo admired the Picassos.

"Bloody fey." She remarked when she joined him in front of the Tete de femme souriante, 1943. It looked like a dog sitting on a fence post. Today clearly was not her day for Modern Art appreciation. "I'm pregnant."

They checked with a charm when they got back to their hotel. Magic confirmed with a soft light on her abdomen what Muggle science had shown with two little pink lines. Hermione lay down on the bed and punched her pillow while Theo stared at her while putting words together carefully in his head.

"You aren't alone." He spoke when he had his feelings in check. Mostly he was happy. There was a certain amount of bitter anger at the Horned God and the Varinens. And the world in general. But being with Hermione made him feel almost resolute.

"Literally, that is correct." Hermione said to the mattress. She sat up. Once they were back in the single time stream, she was going to do a great deal of research into fey magic. There was more than enough for her to get a Mastership. Possibly two, as the magical creatures blended Charms and Transfiguration. Make lemonade.

"I'm sorry. You're only in this mess because of me." Theo sat down on the bed beside her, not touching her as he was uncertain of his reception.

"It's not a mess." She held his hand. "But I am glad I'm not alone in whatever it is." Pregnant at nineteen. Definitely not part of her life plan. Technically, of course, she was older. Quibbling about temporal aging didn't make her feel any better. "Are we in fact legally married?"

"Probably." He sighed. "We are certainly hand-fast. That's an easy ceremony to conduct by default. I presented you as my wife on a festal day to a powerful spirit. A very old fashioned way of plighting troth but recognised by law. More binding now you're expecting a child."

"That's what I thought." Hermione wanted to punch the pillow some more. "At least it isn't until death do us part." She saw his smirk. "I'm sorry, Orpheus, but I'm not ready for that."

"We should probably remove those memory charms. Might get awkward if I introduce you as my pregnant wife, my sister Ophelia." Theo chuckled. When she leaned against him, he hugged her. "Stalwart companions are we."

"I'm due in January. Rather puts pay to returning to Hogwarts. I want to finish my damn education." She blinked rapidly, too cross about the prospect of not completing her schooling to allow herself to cry.

"We can sit our NEWTs privately." He suggested. Hogwarts had offered him that option rather than have him pollute the school with his Death Eater presence. "We won't be the only ones. We can arrange study groups. It might be easier to pick up extra subjects. I'd hate for all that reading about Muggle history to go to waste."

"Sounds reasonable." Hermione had to screw up her courage to return to Hogwarts before she had travelled through time. Revisiting again, with refreshed trauma, seemed like masochism. "I am going to graduate as Hermione Granger. Not Lestrange or Varinen or Nott."

"The hand-fasting doesn't entitle you to be Lady Nott. I have to consult with my paterfamilias and invest you as chatelaine and half a dozen piddling formalities." Their child would be legitimate but his father could still refuse to acknowledge the heir. "The baby will be a Nott, though they would hyphenate their name as our marriage is morganatic until my father endorses it."

"Nott-Granger or Granger-Nott, either way it sounds like joke waiting to happen." Taking about the nine months future made it more real and less of an ominous portent of doom. "Whatever happens, I want a custody agreement. In writing."

"I'm not going to prevent you from seeing your child." Theo was stung that she would think he would exclude her, though it had been done before with wives the family considered unsuitable. They were quietly shunned or outright paid off.

"I wasn't worried about you. It's the Varinens." Hermione would much rather have a solid bulwark of paperwork to snipe behind if Theo's maternal relatives attempted to encroach. "I'm prepared to negotiate. And help with what you need to do to for the Covenant. But on my terms."

"A valid point." He had a vision of endless feet of legal documents. "I would like to celebrate, if you'll allow me. The future I imagined for myself was much more dismal than this one."

Until Theo could access the Nott vaults without a paradox or suspicion of fraud, they had to be mindful of Hermione's Muggle money. So rather than a Michelin restaurant, they had dinner in a little bistro and indulged their news with lemon cake with lavender cream.

June was morning sickness and bicycle tours. Hermione took Theo into the lavender fields in full bloom. They picnicked in a meadow near a Cistercian Abbey, eating bouillabaisse and artisan bread. Theo used balancing charms to stay on his bike until he got used to the pedals. Almost as good as flying.

During the first week of July, they sneaked back into England, to an impersonal medical clinic for a check-up and to book an ultrasound. Theo would have preferred St Mungo's but they compromised on a Muggle doctor with a proviso to see a French Medi-witch if the ultrasound showed any abnormalities.

Theo stared at the still picture on the screen as the doctor babbled. He could follow most of what the man was saying. But he could also count. Two gestational sacs. Two heartbeats. Two foetuses.

The Medi-witch in Marseilles confirmed what the doctor had told them, adding the magical auras of the twin boys were strong and stable. She gave Hermione several potions, which she assured would not react with the prenatal vitamins she had been prescribed. Both medical professionals advised the same thing; healthy diet and rest.

They spent the rest of July in a state of denial enjoying the festivals and lying on the beach reading books. It was lovely. Horrendously self-indulgent, at least in comparison with the trials and rebuilding going on in Magical Britain. The daily arrival of the Prophet seemed to become reproachful.

By the beginning of August, both Hermione and Theo had to admit to themselves and each other that they wanted to go home. They wanted to get their lives back. So the two of them started in earnest to plan and prepare. They stuck it out until the twenty-sixth, grimly determined.

As it was, their journey back took longer than anticipated. Apparition made Hermione's nausea worse so they had to go in easy stages to Scotland, arriving in Hogsmeade just before noon. Their younger selves were already at Hogwarts, assuming their previous schedules were unchanged.

"It's a big assumption that the little details have not altered. What if I didn't decide to come back early?" Hermione sat under a tree out of sight of the village drinking cold herbal tea to settle her stomach.

"I think it's quite possible Nyyrikki would abduct you from your home and carry you off to ensure you and I have a baby." Theo was worrying over much the same things and elected to share his conclusion. "We're changelings, in a way."

"I'm going to use his antlers as a hat-rack if this all goes sideways." She dug into her beaded bag, pulling out a picnic hamper. Her morning sickness fluctuated so randomly that she had taken to carrying a variety of different food around with her to see what she could keep down. Today it was fruit.

"He has significant incentive." Sitting down beside her, he eyed her baby bump. Theo caught himself doing that often. At nearly four months pregnant, Hermione's stomach was now round enough to be obvious. On their departure, the staff at the Pension Allegre had offered felicitations, making jokes about the sea air and how the babies would come out speaking French.

"I'll turn his scrotum into a sporran." Hermione said cheerfully, peeling an orange. She noticed his regard and sighed. "Go on, then."

Theo put his hand lightly on her belly, rubbing over the curve. He couldn't remember ever seeing a pregnant woman. Most witches retired from public sight before they were showing, mostly because pregnancies for pure-blood witches were miserable and fraught. And as a male, he wouldn't have been invited to any of the feminine Mysteries.

"Was that a kick?" Something in her bumped against his fingers. They were due for another ultrasound scan next week and he had been reading Muggle 'expecting' books.

"Probably. Your sons like using my bladder as a football." Aside from the lingering queasiness and the perpetual need to pee, she felt fairly well. Her breasts ached but Theo was more than happy to provide a therapeutic massage, which led to him helping with aches in other places.

For the first time in her life, she felt an intimate closeness with someone. Being a witch put distance between herself and her parents. Being the Chosen One had separated Harry from all his friends no matter how loyal. And with Ron, it seemed she was the one doing the reaching, the adjusting. Ron was always himself. Hermione wasn't sure what that meant or whether it was an artefact of Nyyrikki wanting a healthy baby. Time would tell.

"Time." She looked at her watch. It was one of a pair, old wind-ups they had found broken in an antique market. The analogy appealed to both of them. They had bought and mended the timepieces as a symbol of their journey.

Theo helped her to her feet. They had talked, and talked, about who to meet first, what to say, how to say it, even what to wear to ensure their tale was believed. They had chosen Professor McGonagall as Hermione trusted her and she might remember the Varinens.

They detoured to Black Lake unable to resist. Early, they saw Theo reading under the tree. His older self murmured that he needed a hair cut. Hermione elbowed him then watched as her younger self walked along the shore. They both tried not to sigh with relief. They were there, all four of them, in the right place.

When the crossroads opened, the out-rush of magic was enough to make their hair stand on end even at their discreet distance. Bells rang a discordant peal across Hogwarts. Birds fled the Forbidden Forest. The air hummed and crackled.

"Wow." Hermione leaned against a tree as the energy surge receded. Scintilla danced on her skin. Her hair writhed. Her whole body thrummed. A sonic boom of magic. "That would give the wards something to think about."

"I knew he needed a lot of power but seeing it." Theo pulled out his luopan and watched the needle spin like a propeller. "Nyyrikki must have been saving up for twenty years with the Varinens sustaining him. How much magic does the Covenant hold?"

"Damn it." She swore and ducked behind the bushes. When she wrote up her account of this experience, she was going to leave out the part where the influx of thaumaturgical energy made her bladder feel like it was bursting. None of the other first-hand witness testimonies of magical events had mentioned a pressing urge to piss. Being the first in that regard did not appeal.

She felt good, though. Strong. Powerful. Focussed. There was a yen to dance and sing but that was so foreign to her usual mien Hermione knew it was an effect of the release. When Theo offered her his arm, magic sparkled between them.

Because some things could not be resisted, the Hogwarts staff found them taking measurements at the lake. Headmistress McGonagall had felt the wards let go and fearing an attack of some sort had rallied the teachers and gone to the source immediately.

She did not expect to see Hermione and the Nott boy pacing out the area and testing for residual disturbances but she could not say she was surprised. Both were clever enough to realise what must have happened. Minerva was relieved both of them seemed unhurt.

Different. They were different. The Scottish witch slowed her rush forward. Both were wearing Muggle clothes, which was fine for Hermione but astounding for the Slytherin. They looked serious, which was not unreasonable given the situation, but...

"Godric!" Minerva's gaze fell to the Gryffindor girl's stomach. "My girl, what happened? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Just pregnant." Hermione hurried over to hug her Head of House and definitely not burst into tears despite her hormones urging her to do so. She could be emotional later after they had explained.

Explaining took a while. Minerva left Professor Sprout to supervise the stabilisation of the magic on the lake shore and to organise another survey of the grounds to see if anything more than usually odd had happened. Hogwarts Castle was acting like a moody teenager.

In her office, the Headmistress offered them tea. Halfway through the saga, McGonagall poured herself a Scotch. She believed most of what her favourite student was telling her. Checking the rolls for 1976, she found Orpheus and Ophelia Varinen listed despite having no recollection of them.

"I remember that brawl in the Library. Seventeen different students received detention. I had my hands full. I can't recall anyone going missing." The Headmistress shot a cold look at the portrait of her white-bearded predecessor. "There are some absences in my memory that I find curious."

"No one contacted the Varinens to demand our return. Henrik might have got an owl but if he did, he didn't mention it." Theo had not asked his adoptive father if anyone had inquired about them but he still held the impression he would not have been told if they had.

"I will verify with Horace if there has been any overt tampering of our minds. It is possible it's an after-effect of the fey magic. Such creatures excel at muddling mortal thinking." Minerva said tartly, disliking that sort of interference on principle. How much Albus had done to hide his machinations, she would never know. She suspected quite a bit.

"We have no intention of resuming life as the Varinen twins. I want to be me." Hermione spoke those words like a declaration. "But there may be some problems with that."

"Your heritage, yes." Minerva would never say how profoundly disappointed she was to learn the brilliant Muggle-born was not. Hermione could have led the charge against the prejudices inherent in their world but everything she did now would be ascribed to her august lineage.

"I'm not at peace with it yet." She thought of Nyrikki's foretelling of her would-have-been future. "I want to find out how I ended up with my parents. Are they alright? I Obliviated them."

"Yes, that happened here too." The Headmistress hesitated and saw her pause alarm her student. "Severus with the help of the Healers at St Mungo's was able to undo the spell. The Grangers recovered very well. But all of the Memory Charms were removed from their minds. They remember now that they lost their daughter to an inherited malady. Their lives with you as their child are causing them some distress."

"Where are they now?" Theo asked when Hermione fell silent. He could tell she was marshalling herself, fighting to keep down her emotional response.

"In the Janus Thickey ward. It seemed the safest place for them to recover. They aren't happy about that but we cannot release them without violating the Statute of Secrecy." Minerva regarded Hermione with sympathy. "I know it is a shock. I am so very sorry."

"No." The word was soft then repeated with more firmness. "No, it's better this way. They were..." She stopped. "They didn't respond well." Hermione stopped again, trying to find clinical words. "The rehabilitation process was going to be difficult. They might've needed long-term care. It would certainly have been years before they could look after themselves."

"I'm sorry." Minerva repeated, feeling as inadequate as she had when she had held the sobbing girl in the hospital after they'd learned the truth.

"Yes, well, if that's the worst of it, it's not so bad." Hermione made an effort to sound less completely gutted. She could deal with being an orphan. At least her parents were well. That made it easier, right? "I presume I didn't know the source of the second Memory Charm."

"No one did. You applied to interview several of the more coherent Death Eaters and you spoke with anyone old enough among the Order of the Phoenix who might have known something." She didn't need to say that clues were not readily forthcoming twenty years after the fact.

"How many people know about Nemesia?" The name wasn't hers yet. Hermione understood that she would have to accept the name was hers or it would hang over her forever but it would wait.

"No one, actually." The Scotch got a refill. Bellatrix's daughter. Minerva never would have guessed. "I believe you told Harry and Ronald, so of course the extended Weasley family is aware of it, but all you knew for certain was that you had been substituted. Without a living relative, it is difficult to test for consanguinity."

"I confirmed the rune tablet with heritage charms. It was simple enough." Once she had found the heraldic magic, the archaic spells had worked quite well. Finding them had been the frustrating part. The wizarding world did not embrace indices.

"Such blood magic is illegal, Hermione." The Scottish witch hastily interrupted. "And the sort of inheritance spells to which you refer are the purview of very pure-blood families." Minerva directed a cool look at Theodore Nott, who maintained the usual Slytherin bland expression.

"Then we won't tell them about it." More lying. Wonderful. "At least not until we find out how it happened. Let's dole out the shocks in small portions." Hermione's hand strayed to her baby bump. "Ron is going to be upset."

"That is rather an understatement, my dear." McGonagall agreed, gloomily.


	32. Bathos

The plan was to owl Harry and Ron to meet somewhere discreet. Not the Burrow, not Nott Manor, and not Grimmauld Place, mention of which had got a blank look from Professor McGonagall. Theo and Hermione had settled on the Grangers' house as being the most non-confrontational setting.

Ron didn't owl back. When Harry did, with a dashed off note, he said he was flat-out with Auror training and wasn't free until the weekend. Hermione frowned at his reply. Her letter had been deliberately casual as she hadn't wanted to alarm her friends. She sent another one to both boys with a bit more push in it delivered by a Nott owl, which should pique interest at least.

Ron still didn't reply but Harry agreed to drop by that night, late after he'd done his reading. Theo kept his opinions to himself. They'd both agreed the news wasn't urgent as nothing could be done about the time travel. But a little more concern would be nice.

"This is what I get for being the reliable one." Hermione sighed. She wasn't put out, just frustrated. She wanted to tell her friends. Get it over with. Theo kissed her gently then when she responded more forcefully.

They made love on the floor of the study, Hermione riding him still half dressed. Magic flared between them, the excess from the time portal earthing through their bodies. Theo writhed feeling impossibly priapic as his witch tried to bite back on a scream of pleasure.

They got nothing done that evening. They did manage to make it to the bed in Theo's suite, or to the edge of it where he took her on her knees with her urging him on. When they finally lay sweating and sated on the dishevelled bedding, Hermione laughed.

"I hope that isn't a critique of my performance." Theo raised an eyebrow. He couldn't raise anything else. He had never felt so wrung, so empty.

"I was thinking of our To Do List. We missed 'shag like rabbits'." She thought that was funny, though her amusement could be the endorphin high from orgasm. "I think we should tell Neville too."

"I don't know that I could emotionally sustain a triad." He mused and chuckled at the elbow his quip earned. "If you want to trust him, we will. I am telling none of my friends. Should any ask, our sons began from a passionate moment in the aftermath of battle."

"And they'll believe that?" Her own friends wouldn't.

"They won't be able to say anything against it. Our sons will be Notts. Legitimate and welcomed." Acknowledged might be more difficult. His father was in Azkaban. The trial had been well publicised. Hermione had been granted an appointment to see him, something Theo had been denied.

They loafed, tempted by a nap but not really having time for it. Hermione showered and changed into some of the clothes she had collected from Hogwarts. None of her jeans fit but leggings and a t-shirt were obliging. She'd buy some maternity clothes rather than relying on a sustained Transfiguration. Pregnancy often caused spontaneous magical outbursts. Memory of Berengaria Yaxley's trick made her want to be sure of the integrity of her own clothes.

Theo picked one of his many dark grey suits, opting for a red tie with a gold pin, treasuring the fleeting smile his choice inspired in his fretful witch. He cleaned up his suite and his study then went downstairs to his father's private parlour to hold a conference with the Nott elves.

They were not happy. A troupe of the senior elves, all of whom had served his family for generations, gathered in a sober company on the Axminster carpet. Hermione sat on a deep buttoned armchair while Theo remained standing. He had prepared a speech.

One of the elves, Moppet, who had been his nanny, ignored him and approached the witch. She put her small bony hand on Hermione's stomach and closed her eyes. Nothing happened, no one spoke, as they waited for the verdict.

"Many babies." Moppet almost crooned.

"Twins, yes." Hermione agreed. The elf gave her an unreadable look then glared at Theo.

"You gave yourself away, young Master. You is Varinen now." It was an accusation that required no confirmation. "But boys is Notts so we let you and Mistress stay. For the babies."

"Thank you, Moppet." Theo was polite, for all he wanted to point out it was his damn house. However he had never yet won an argument with his nanny. "Please don't tell anyone I am a Varinen. We want to keep the Covenant a secret. And the time travel."

"And my blood status." Hermione added, assuming from Kreacher's original reaction to her that elves could tell if a wizard or witch was pure-blood. "Who could order Kreacher to lie? When I first went to Grimmauld Place he was horrible to me. Mudblood this, nasty witch that. But he knew who I was."

"Any of the Blacks could." That was the easy answer. But which Black would know? And who was alive now to ask? "Andromeda, Narcissa and Regulus."

"I'd prefer to ask Andromeda first. I doubt she would've been able to get access to her sister's baby but it's possible she could have sneaked in." She frowned. "Where would I have been born? St Mungo's doesn't seem likely."

"Lestrange Manor, mostly probably. Which has been derelict since Rodolphus and Rabastan went to Azkaban the first time." Theo wasn't sure but he thought the Ministry had seized the estate. "The elves might still be there as there are Lestranges still living."

"Would Miss like us to fetch a Lestrange elf for Miss?" Moppet asked, the Nott elves spectating the conversation without shame. Hermione started, recalling they had an audience.

"No, thank you." She didn't want to face that yet. It seemed too much like accepting her parentage. "We have a late meeting tonight. It may be easier to stay at my Muggle parents' house."

"Oh no, Miss, that would be bad for the babies. They need magic to be proper wizards. They needs to be safe in the wards." Moppet insisted, her big eyes widening to saucers and beginning to swim with tears when Hermione made to protest. She looked at Theo, who smirked.

"We'll come back here, then." It wasn't a difficult compromise. Nott Manor held no bad memories for her unlike her own home. It was better that her parents were well. Much, much better. But she still felt like an orphan.

Her capitulation pleased the elves. They blinked away back to whatever duties usually occupied them. Hermione levelled a stare at Theo, who mentally discarded his careful oration in favour of a helpless shrug.

"She insisted I eat my peas despite my repeated assurances that I hated them. That I still hate them. Yet I continue to eat the bloody things to avoid her reproachful looks." He confessed. The matter of inheritance was settled, apparently. Legally, little changed with his adoption by Henrik Varinen but the house elves followed a different code.

They Apparated to the Grangers' home and ordered pizza, mostly for Harry as Hermione doubted he would remember to have supper. Theo was reluctant to eat food directly from the box, particularly one that looked like it had been sat on. He paid the delivery lackey and conveyed the stack of fragrant cardboard into the kitchen.

"I've been here, tidying things up." Hermione judged from the empty fridge and the lack of dust. "I, me not her, left the house closed after donating the non-perishable food. I didn't know when my parents were coming back. But this has changed a bit. She's sorted the mail and watered the garden."

"You may be able to build a friendship with your Muggle parents. You share years of memories, real memories. They raised you." Theo opened the lids of the boxes to attempt to find something that looked supreme. They all looked like melted cheese with bits in.

"That feels like rubbing salt in their wounds, though. The fake daughter wanting to stay in their lives like a parasite." She set the table mostly to keep busy. Whenever she and the boys had pizza they made plates out of the box lids and used paper towels as napkins. Theo's pained look when she made that suggestion forced her to be a bit more civilised.

Potter saved Theo from a vain search for a sympathetic reply. There was little he could say to help Hermione feel better and it pained him to be so inept. The arrival of the Boy Who Lived diverted them to another of their problems.

Accustomed to the ready hospitality of the Burrow, Harry let himself in the front door Theo hadn't locked and wiped his feet. He called out to Hermione before shedding his trenchcoat, hanging it up on the peg rail. He could have charmed it dry but after a long day of training even drawing his wand was an effort.

"Kitchen. Pizza." Hermione replied. Harry smiled. Whatever it was that had her down from Hogwarts couldn't be that much of a crisis if she'd ordered takeaway. He strolled into the kitchen to find he was very wrong.

"Evening." Harry began then noticed the pertinent details. His friend wasn't alone. He recognised the brown haired wizard in the flash suit. "What the Hell is he doing here? Shouldn't you be in Azkaban, Nott?"

"He's on probation." Hermione answered quickly. The smudges under Harry's eyes and his sharp tone told her how much he had been pushing himself. He'd been playing Auror training off as a breeze but clearly it wasn't. "What's my favourite food?"

"Nutella." He answered the security question automatically. "What did Hagrid give Dudley?"

"A pig's tail." She replied and relaxed when he relaxed. Theo looked like they'd run mad until he remembered telling Hermione about his mother's azaleas. The security questions had reassured Potter enough that the Slytherin thought it possible they might resume the conversation politely.

"I'm here for Hermione's sake. She has some important things to share with you." That was a politician's gambit, bland and giving no actual answers but Theo didn't know how to handle Golden Boy's temper. He planned to start with pap and see what Potter spat up.

"Like how she got so fat in the week since I last saw her?" Harry dropped his gaze to her stomach. That was definitely something new. They'd eaten like locusts over the summer but they hadn't got back all the weight they'd lost.

"I'm not fat, Harry." Hermione pulled her shirt up to show her rounded belly. Theo looked shocked that she would so casually bare herself but there was no self-consciousness between her and Harry after the tent.

"So I see." He walked over, putting a hand on the bump. It was warm, which was a stupid thing to notice as of course her stomach would be warm. A lump moved under his palm. "Lively chap. Ron'll be thrilled."

"I expect not." Theo said crisply. The look Potter shot him could have been an Unforgivable.

"That's part of what we need to talk about." Hermione cut in before the hexes started. "Time travel." She got the words out fast as Harry wound himself up in outraged defence of his best friend. "Theo and I have just come back from the past."

"Right." Harry nodded, waiting for her to continue. Theo envied that trust. None of his friends would have taken his word for it.

Hermione explained as they ate. She left out the bit where they had cursed Harry's father, the vow of midsummer, and her true parentage. The first because it was awkward, the second because it was private and the third because she wasn't sure how he would take it.

"A fey spirit sent you back in time to have Nott's baby because you'd used a time turner so he could muck about with your life?" The condensed version still pissed him off. Hermione deserved better than that. Harry glared at the Slytherin. "You support her or you'll be sharing a cell with your dad."

"Hermione and I are hand-fast." Theo informed the Saviour of the Wizarding World in case his one wit had missed that part. "That means we are married and our sons are legitimate. I am honour-bound to support the mother of my heirs."

"Sons?" Harry raised both eyebrows.

"Twins." Hermione said, with a sigh. "Fraternal not identical so we won't have a repeat of Fred and George."

"Pity. I could see two miniature versions of you correcting everyone in stereo." He smirked then rose to hug her. "It'll be great. I'll teach them to fly. With your punching arm, they'll be Beaters for Gryffindor."

"Slytherin." Theo muttered around his pizza. "Every Nott has been Sorted into Salazar's House since the tenth century." He added that to demonstrate he was not being partisan. Being Slytherin was probably in their blood by now.

"Every Granger has been Sorted into Godric's House." Harry retorted then he saw the look on her face and remembered. "Sorry, 'Mione."

"It's not that I'm adopted. My parents were great to me and they're alright now." She took a deep breath. "Arbitrarily, if you had to pick the people I'd least like to have as my biological parents, who would you guess?"

Harry stared at her then at her left arm. She nodded. He hugged her again as Hermione started to cry. She sobbed into his shoulder until she got the hiccups, which made her feel ill enough to have to hurry to the bathroom to be sick.

"I expect you're pleased." Harry accused Nott, his voice low.

"Not particularly." Theo replied coolly. Potter's eyes hardened to emeralds. Tactically, it would be better if they weren't hostile so he made an effort to forge a truce. "I fell in love with Hermione before we learned she was a pure-blood. I want my wife happy. Being a Lestrange upsets her."

"Her being a Nott upsets me. I don't trust you." While he had to concede Nott wasn't the worst Slytherin, he was hardly the best. More of a neutral non-entity. Bookish, though, so Harry could see the appeal of him to Hermione. "But I trust her. You get one chance."

"Understood." He reminded himself that he was the one with the manners, education and pedigree. Potter might snarl like a cur but he need not snarl back. "I would be obliged if you stood as godfather to one of my sons. I expect Hermione will want Weasley as the other."

"I'd be honoured." Harry was polite and honest, and privately certain Nott only asked to keep on the witch's good side. "Ron will be a problem. He and the other Hermione argued a lot over summer. Ron wanted a break from it all, to put off deciding about work or school. Hermione was all set on getting back to Hogwarts as soon as possible."

"Which she did, without him." Theo had seen Weasley's name many times in the society section of the Prophet with a different group of people each time. Hermione had been far less frequently mentioned.

"I'll tell him she's pregnant. That way he'll shout at me first. If she tells him, he'll blow up at her then run off and do something stupid." He grimaced but he was used to managing a redhead's temper. "I'm not sure what he'll dislike more. The baby not being his or the father being a Death Eater."

"I would hope he has sufficient care for a good friend that he would worry more about my Dark Mark than his not getting a leg over." He kept his voice down despite a strong urge to rant. Theo had not expected Hermione's social circle to accept him but he would be furious if she was rejected by them on the grounds of the Weasel's jealousy.

"Leave Ron to me. I'll talk him around." Harry would've said more but Hermione returned apologetically from the bathroom.

"Evidently it's not a pizza day. Let's see if the fruit is happy to see me." She rejoined them at the table and dug out the picnic hamper. "I should get that tent back from Hogwarts. Hopefully no one pinched it."

"You two really ran around like cowboys trying to thwart fate?" Harry made a joke to cover the seriousness of his chat with Nott, who was busying himself getting Hermione a glass of water.

"I'm not good at improvising." She shrugged, feigning nonchalance but immeasurably relieved they had succeeded. They hadn't saved everyone but seeing all nine Weasleys in the Prophet had salved many of her wounds. Hermione knew Harry would understand.

"You should probably make a report to the Unspeakables, just in case there's some temporal wobbles." Auror Potter suggested before he finished off the last of the pizza. He'd skipped lunch and was only now realising how hungry he was.

"It's on the list." Hermione confirmed, peeling an orange. She didn't particularly want to eat it but if she didn't put something in her stomach she'd feel unwell all night. "We thought we'd speak to Neville next. He's completely trustworthy and he was very kind to me when my parents looked like they'd be in St Mungo's long-term."

"I haven't seen him much. He's looking after Luna. She's been in a bad way since the battle." Harry vouchsafed, rubbing his face with the hand that didn't hold his dinner. He'd poked himself in the eye with a sandwich last week he'd been so tired.

"Was she badly hurt?" Theo asked as Hermione fought an upswell of nausea. Had they changed something to push a curse onto Luna? They had been so lucky with the alterations, foisting the worst of the consequences onto Death Eaters.

"Oh no, nothing like that. She didn't have a mark on her." He assured, noting Nott's frown at his turn of phrase. "I'm not sure, exactly. She went dottier than usual. Kept talking about things that hadn't happened."

"That might be our fault." Hermione ventured. "And I don't think she's dotty. Far from it."


	33. Bezel

True to their word to the elves, Theo and Hermione returned to Nott Manor after their meeting with Harry. Exhausted, Hermione went immediately to bed. Theo wrote some letters in his study. There were certain duties he could not put off and he badly wanted to know what had happened to Idra. They had not mentioned their rescue of the Death Eater to Professor McGonagall or Potter.

When he finally retired, Theo lay awake beside his wife and silently marvelled at the intricate knotwork of fate. He had wed young, in an arranged marriage, to a pure-blood girl from a very good family. The wizard wondered if that was how fey magic worked. You got what you asked for, but the details were slightly askew.

Married but only hand-fasted. Arranged marriage but not by his father. Pure-blood girl but Muggle raised. A very good family but a social millstone. Heir and a spare on the way but owing a Faustian debt. Old abstruse cautions from folklore about bargaining with fey seemed ironically correct.

Theo woke early to the sounds of the traditional morning activity of an expectant woman. Hermione had assured him that her frequent visits to the smallest room were quite normal. She could keep food down most of the time and was in no danger of becoming dehydrated. The Muggle books, shockingly explicit on topics only alluded to in polite wizarding society, said much the same.

He got up to make tea as he had done for her while they were in France only to find Moppet hovering by the toilet door with a tray. Dry toast, sliced apple and a teapot of what smelled like peppermint.

"In about an hour, she'll want some porridge with honey and a tiny amount of cinnamon." Theo advised the elf. "We'll be out for lunch."

"Miss should be at home resting." Moppet said stoutly as the bathroom door opened.

"Miss isn't made of porcelain." Hermione spoke around her toothbrush. "I'm going to have a soak. Everything aches. Could you put the tray in the bathroom, please?" Moppet whisked away, delighted to obey. "I really wish they wouldn't do that."

"Do you want to stay in today?" He could run most of the errands himself though he was unwilling to meet Longbottom and Lovegood alone.

"I'll be fine after a bath. I forgot to ask yesterday but are there any maternity clothes in the house you wouldn't mind me borrowing? I presume there are acres of closets." She'd thought about the general health of her finances and shelling out for clothes she'd only need for five months seemed a ridiculous expense. A couple of robes would do. And the idea of shopping in Muggle London with a rebellious stomach and a sore back made her want to go back to bed.

"I'm sure there's something. I'll organise a hunt while you steep." Theo kissed her lightly on the cheek, avoiding the foam around her mouth then collected his dressing gown. One of his favourite indulgences was padding around the Manor in his pyjamas. If he wasn't dressed, it meant he didn't have to socialise.

Theo went to his father's suite and asked Miniver, the wardrobe elf, to look for clothes for Hermione. Tristan Nott's personal elves had nothing to do except obsessively clean his rooms and possessions. Even the woodwork shone.

He could not unfortunately use his attire as an excuse to ignore owls. There were several waiting for them in the owlery. The one from the Ministry tried to bite him as usual. He had applied for a change in his attendance at Hogwarts, from resident to correspondent. It had been approved with the tacit suggestion he keep out of the sight of decent wizarding folk.

The Malfoy owl did not try to take a chunk out of his finger but the bird did look superciliously down at him as though he should have dressed to fetch the post. Theo gave him a treat and sent him on his way, very much the tactics he had used on the bird's owner during their school days.

Taking the mail upstairs, he invited himself into his wife's bath and helped himself to some of the sliced apple. Hermione was reading through her notes from their sojourn in the past. They exchanged notebook for letters.

"I think it's Regulus who swapped me." The witch remarked as her eyes tracked over the Ministry's missive. "We need to speak with him. Even if he has a Fidelius on Grimmauld Place, we can camp out on his doorstep until he lets us in."

"You could relay messages to him via Kreacher. No need to spend the day looking like vagrants." A house elf courier didn't have the same cachet as a siege but it was more comfortable.

"I don't like using house elves as minions." Hermione balled up the official letter and threw it at the decorative sea dragon tap that dispensed bath salts. Rather, she threw it near the tap. The parchment ball bounced off the brass and fell into the water. "Not one word."

Theo said nothing, hiding his smile behind her carefully written journal. While he was not an athlete, most of his childhood fun had involved throwing things at his friends. His witch's lack of hand/eye coordination was compensated for by her force at short range as Malfoy could attest.

"I am only agreeing to a study group with the Ferret because it gives me an opportunity to sneer back at him." She asserted, somewhat truthfully. Malfoy was clever. If it weren't for his arrogance, he might have been Sorted into Ravenclaw. Hermione idly wondered what her schooling would've been like if she and the blonde prat had been in the same House. Much the same probably, given even in the same colour tie she would've been beneath his notice.

"Duly noted." Theo did not say he had seen the way her mouth twitched at the corners when she was trying not to smirk. She was breaking herself of Ophelia's Slytherin habits with only middling success. "If there is anyone you'd like to invite, please do."

"Two Death Eaters will be tough to stomach." Hermione said it because she had swallowed so many other similar comments it was making her feel as ill as morning sickness. "I want to move past the divisions but not everyone else is ready to build bridges."

"We have time." He said then shook his head. "It will be a while before I don't cringe at that word. I should say we will be studying for a considerable period. We need not push anyone to join us. I know I would prefer to live quietly for a while."

"Me too." She sighed and put Malfoy's letter on the breakfast tray. "I'll put the word out. Our schooling has been sub-par for years." Hermione was astounded anyone had managed to pass NEWTs or OWLs recently. "Can people resit their exams?"

"Depends who asks." The Ministry wasn't as venal as it had been, mostly because the worst of the influence pedlars had been purged when the Muggle-born Registration Commission had been dismantled. "Extenuating circumstances can be expensive to procure."

"I bet." Hermione agreed, idly reading through the letter from Gringotts and trying to do some mental arithmetic. "The goblins regretfully can only allow me access to the Nott domestic accounts. Really? Regretfully? I guess I'll only be able to buy the one house, then."

"I'll pay you back for what you spent to support us, of course." Theo assured her, not certain of the source of her sarcasm. "You won't be penniless. But without a marriage contract, you aren't entitled to the dower vaults." He stopped when she crumpled the letter and tossed it at him. It fell short but the gesture was evident.

"The piffling pin money you and the goblins are regretful about honestly would buy me a nice three bedroom semi somewhere convenient. Not in London but I could be quite comfortable, thank you." She shook her head. "The wealth disparity in the magical world boggles me."

"I don't want you to have to worry about money." He sheared his statement bare, not wishing to get into an argument about how what the goblins were offering was an insult. Much of the Nott money was tied up in trusts he couldn't access without his father's permission, which his father couldn't give unless in person.

"Thank you." Hermione told herself to be polite because he was trying to be kind in his spoiled, ivory tower way. Her parents had done well for themselves and she'd never wanted for anything. But she also knew how much things cost. Costs and values had been important lessons for the Grangers. "I'll be fine."

"Please use the domestic vaults for your expenses. Potter wanted me to support you." Theo was aware that was blackmail but he was proudly Slytherin and wanted to have ammunition against Golden Boy's disdain. "I understand you cherish your independence but you will have necessities for the pregnancy."

"You don't need to jolly me into spending your gold. I'll be practical." She had already squared it with her pride that it would be more sensible to stay at Nott Manor than rent her own place. This wasn't just about herself. Her parents' bills would need paying until they could go back to work and baby things were expensive.

"Thank you." He returned her courtesy.

They soaked until the water became tepid then rather than spelling it hot again got out of the tub. Hermione tapped herself with her wand, casting a balancing charm before climbing out. She didn't need the magical help yet, she just wanted to get into the habit.

Miniver had excelled herself. A dozen gowns floated ready for inspection. Hermione sniffed speculatively at a sleeve but the elf had anticipated that and had aired the garments before presenting them.

"Your ancestors liked black and grey." She observed. Wizarding fashion changed slowly. Hermione could guess which were the oldest dresses only by the lace and frogging. She picked the one that looked the least Gothic; navy blue with long sleeves and a tear drop neckline.

"Nott is the personification of Night in Norse mythology. The appellation is mostly likely from our dark hair, distinctive among our Norse peers." Theo aired his private theory. "Most of my forebears took it as an excuse to indulge in Dark Magic and nocturnal garb."

"The nursery is going to light and airy." Hermione stated as she dried herself and dressed. "We're not the Addams Family."

"Book or movie reference?" He asked from his closet. He had no idea what they would be doing at the Lovegoods so he opted for a sweater and slacks. If the Ravenclaw had lost all the bats from her belfry she might hex on sight. Theo didn't want to ruin a suit.

"Movie. Several, actually. And telly programs. I think they started as a newspaper comic. American." She explained in the same way she had their Muggle Studies homework. "Grotesque humour and family drama. I identified with Wednesday Addams, the daughter."

"I'll add it to the list." Theo had started to compile a 'popular culture' list of films and literature to immerse himself in the Muggle zeitgeist. Whether or not he found it comprehensible or palatable, it would be a welcome change from giant snakes and zealots.

The Lovegoods' house looked like a broken tooth. Hermione Apparated herself and Theo there then stood on the flank of the hill looking at the ruined building. She hadn't seen the damage when she, Ron and Harry had hastily left. No repairs seemed to have been done though a pink marquee pitched beside the house suggested habitation.

Someone had strung home-made wind chimes from withy stakes along the path to Ottery St Catchpole. More hung from from the crossbeams of the tent. The slightest breeze would make a clamour, which they discovered when the gust from their Apparition set them off.

Luna emerged from the marquee in an overall the same cerise with a garland of wild grasses in her hair. She drifted over to them, her dreamy gaze alighting speculatively on Hermione's robes then Theo's signet ring.

"I had expected you to be in green but I suppose you are in a way quite verdant already." The blonde witch reflected, smiling. "Welcome back."

"When Harry mentioned you were disorientated, we wondered if it had something to do with our trip." Hermione ventured, wanting a bit more confirmation before sharing their story.

"I expect he said I was barmy. A lot of people think so. It was very distracting trying to keep everything separate. I stopped trying after a while. Too much bother, really." Luna shrugged as though temporal anomalies were snails in the garden. "Do come in. The kettle's just boiled."

There was a sink and pot bellied stove in the tent but otherwise all the furniture was beanbags and cushions. Luna made tea as her guests cautiously sat, Hermione unsure if she could get back on her feet and Theo unsure if the stuffed sack counted as a chair.

"I didn't want any sharp edges." The blonde witch said to the teapot. "Neville will be by soon. He took Daddy to Diagon Alley to look at printing presses." She charmed the tea tray to follow her and joined them on the pouffe seats.

"How is your father?" Hermione asked when Luna's pause elongated into silence.

"Daddy's fine. He gets a bit lost sometimes but I think we all do that now. Some have a longer walk, that's all." She blinked at them as she spoke then sighed contentedly. "There really is just the two of you now. I could never see the other you very clearly. She was always rippling like wind over water."

"Have I changed much?" Who else could she ask that question? Theo hadn't known her well and no one else had known both her selves.

"Every day changes us." Luna mused. "You've walked the same path. Maybe you stopped in a few different places but you're the reed not the oak."

"Dodsley thought the willow was a coward." Hermione said wryly, seeing the benefit of bending in the storm while striving to stand like the oak.

"Bamboo." Theo remarked and the two witches nodded. They drank tea in calm accord, each reassured by the others' understanding. Neville and Xenophilius returned before the pot went cold, hauling with them a complicated tangle of ironmongery.

"The truth shall again ring out." The Quibbler's editor told his daughter, embracing her as though he feared she had disappeared while he was out. Neville stowed the new press in the damaged house before striding over to where Hermione was sitting.

"I'll be heading up to..." The rangy wizard took a step back then looked down. "Merlin's Beard!"

"I'm fine." She reassured.

"Just pregnant." Theo echoed what his wife had told McGonagall. The glare Longbottom gave him was remarkably similar to the one Potter had sent his way.

"I noticed." Neville shifted, putting himself between Hermione and Nott. The Slytherin had been in his Herbology class in Seventh Year though he had been often excused from school for 'family reasons' very likely related to his father being a Death Eater. "What does my mother give me when I visit?"

"Candy wrappers." Hermione answered. "Why did my parents give me my name?"

"They met at a performance of the Winter's Tale." He glanced at her over his shoulder and shifted his stance when she nodded. "Alright, you're you but you could still be under the Imperius."

"They're themselves. It's all done, Neville. I wonder if we have any shortbread." Luna slipped out of her father's grasp to make more tea. Xenophilius approached Hermione, dropping to his knees to hugged her almost as fervently as he had his daughter.

"Luna said you were roaming the crossroads. We made the chimes so you could hear the true path through the Mists." He stared into her eyes searching for something. "You look elfshot." His grip tightened and Hermione flinched. "Please, you must listen. Don't let them take you away."

"I won't. It's alright." She tried to detach him gently but Xenophilius clung on.

"No! Listen to me!" His arms locked around her as his voice rose to a manic pitch. "Listen! The fair folk will drag you away. They're terrible and awesome and covetous." Xenophilius shook the heedless witch. "They need souls for their tithe to Hell!"

Theo was on his feet, a fist in Lovegood's pale hair and a wand at his throat. Before he could utter a threat, Neville dragged both wizards away from Hermione, who scrambled ungainly to her feet. Luna rushed to her side trying to calm the situation.

"Daddy, they escaped Avalon. They're safe." The Ravenclaw soothed as Xenophilius thrashed in Neville's grasp.

"The bonds, don't you see? They didn't escape!" The wizard shouted, frantic to get the words out so they could be heard. "He isn't Tam Lin. He's one of them!" Xenophilius launched himself at Theo. "Clap him in irons!"

"Petrificus Totalus." Hermione said regretfully.

Neville was fast enough to catch the older wizard when the Full Body-Bind struck him. Releasing Nott, he gently lowered Xenophilius onto the cushions and pulled his wand out of his belt, giving it to Luna for custody.

"He was doing well today." Neville settled the cursed man as comfortably as possible. "You better not still have your wand out, Nott. I know you're on Probation. First jinx from you and you'll be back before the Wizengamot."

"He was attacking my wife." Theo bitterly complied, painfully aware of the strictures of his parole.

"Hermione, we need to talk." The young man who had kept the DA going despite the Carrows issued the command. The two Gryffindors exchanged looks, communicating in that silent way comrades had, before the witch nodded. "Without Nott. I don't want him alone with Luna and her father either."

"Theo, would you mind? I'll make my own way home." Hermione asked, aware she couldn't make it not look like she was dismissing him. He didn't protest. A slight, polite bow of the head and Theo Disapparated.

"Wife." Neville said, picking the word that had rattled him beyond all of Xenophilius's ranting and Luna's sudden coherence. "When did that happen?"

"Nineteen seventy-six." She had to be honest, it sounded crazy to her too. "We were pulled back in time by a sidhe to whom Theo's grandfather owed a debt. We were stuck for months, either in Hogwarts or waiting for the loop to close."

"I tried to tell everyone." Luna arranged shortbread in a figure of eight on a plate. "I wasn't sure of the names so I could never be clear which Hermione was doing what. It was awful in your Third Year. The two of you were hardly ever in the same place at the same time."

"So Luna was seeing the past and present versions of you?" Neville inquired, trying to understand and frankly struggling.

"The first version of me and the second version living in the altered timeline." Hermione clarified ruefully. She would feel better about shaking the inchoate future like a snow globe after she knew more of what had changed. "We tried not to muck anything up by blending in at Hogwarts. It was damn hard. I was Sorted into Slytherin. And when we came back, it was the beginning of May."

"So those two students no one could find after the Battle, the ones who killed Bellatrix, they were you and Nott?" He lined up some oddities. "Remus said he was told by a Slytherin that Greyback was in the Castle, on the ground floor. He ran to intercept the mad dog, only to see him rush in through a hole in the wall. He hadn't got into Hogwarts yet." That had been thin evidence at the time but now it was more convincing. "And the Muggle tent in the dungeons."

"Theo knew the roof would collapse. We moved the students somewhere safe." Hermione transfigured a bean bag into a proper armchair and sat down. Thinking about the Battle was enervating. "Once we were in our own time, we had to save people. We lost so many the first go."

"Luna saw you with the Weasleys and she asked you why you weren't crying." Neville remembered that little bit of strangeness. The Weasleys had been so relieved to be together that everyone was laughing. Remarking on someone not crying seemed incongruous.

"Fred died. A stray curse caused an explosion. We tried to save him and nearly got blown up ourselves." Parsing the different tenses was still difficult. Hermione repeated herself to attempt to be more clear. "I was there the first time so I knew exactly when and how. When we revisited, we tried to protect Fred. The blast still happened but this time no one was killed."

"Hence Luna's confusion." Neville smiled at the Ravenclaw. He'd been sure she wasn't insane. Muddled sometimes but from seeing how his parents acted he knew she was rational. Her behaviour after the Battle had worried him, the headaches and distraction. "Where were you? It was all fish and art when the other Hermione visited."

"We hid in the south of France. We didn't want to cause any disturbances. And we had to let ourselves go back. Having two copies occupying the space for one would cause massive discordance." That much concrete information she had been able to find in the Library. Bad things happening from time magic were well documented.

"We," He'd picked up on the frequency of Hermione's references to herself and Nott as one unit. Neville had stonking great apprehensions about that. "Xenophilius may have a point. If you've been influenced by that fey spirit, you may not be thinking straight."

"That could be true." It would be naïve to ignore the possibility. "I'm not making any commitments." Hermione's hand strayed to her belly. "Beyond the obvious. Theo and I are hand-fasted. I made no permanent vows. If all this is pixie dust then I'll shrug and move on."

"He's a Death Eater." Neville could forgive a lot but not that.

"So is Professor Snape. People make mistakes, and we won." She emphasised the last two words. "We don't have to repeat their mistakes ourselves. I don't want my sons growing up to fight another fucking war."


	34. Benefactress

Hermione was not altogether at peace when she returned to Nott Manor. She felt guilty she had deliberately ignored the Burrow despite it being only over the hill from the Lovegoods. She didn't feel right about talking to the Weasleys before she spoke to Ron. That Harry had said he would break the news to him was a mild salve.

Theo was at his desk in the study writing. Hermione leaned against the door jamb not wanting to intrude. He waved without looking up, finishing the letter before rising to greet her.

"Did it go well?" He'd had leisure to choose what to ask her and had opted to begin with the most innocuous question. Theo didn't like having been dismissed but he hadn't wanted to cause a scene. Longbottom distrusted him and that was not likely to change However, for the sake of Hermione, the gardening blood traitor would play nice.

"In parts. Neville and Luna are sweet together. I think now she's not suffering from our jaunt he might ask her out." It wasn't a pairing she would've picked but if they were happy then she'd be happy for them. "Who said only those with their feet on solid ground can build castles in the air?"

"Very probably a Muggle, as I can build a perfectly good floating fort if pressed. They're a bit draughty though." Theo smiled at her abstraction and tested the waters of her mood by kissing her cheek. She turned her face as he approached so their lips touched and lingered.

"I'm worried what I'm feeling will stop." Hermione confessed when they paused for breath. "I don't want to get too attached. It'll hurt to lose you."

"We'll always have the past and Marseilles." He held her hands, not voicing his own worries that she would be the one striding over the horizon once she was free of his sons. He believed Nyyrikki's revelation he'd spend his life rattling around his family home gathering dust like the china.

"Now we sound like a cheesy romance." She rolled her eyes. "Ready to sit-in at Grimmauld Place?"

"We have an invitation to tea from Lord Black." Theo inclined his head towards the parchment on his desk. "I was penning a polite maybe later. I wasn't sure whether you wanted to see him today."

"That was fast." And suspicious. Hermione frowned. "Lord Black, is it? How posh."

"I had the impression he's been anticipating this. It's possible your name has appeared on the family tapestry." He retrieved the invitation from the pile of correspondence. It wasn't a large stack, which was how Theo liked it. A few good friends not a parasitic swarm of acquaintances.

"Crest on the stationary. He's really lording it up." The heraldry was the first thing she noticed when Theo handed her the vellum. The deliberately antiquated language was another.

"As the head of the House of Black, Regulus's proper title is Lord Black. The traditional address has fallen into disuse except when one wishes to make a point of formality." Theo personally thought the affectation was unnecessary. Only toadies like Umbridge clung to the usage.

"So your father would be Lord Nott?" Hermione thought there was quite enough stratification in wizarding society already. In several senses, it had nobs on.

"Yes, though as he is incarcerated, he could cede the title and duties to me. If we could meet in person. Otherwise, I am heir apparent and a great many things are in limbo until he dies." Over his first summer of 1998, he had investigated what he could actually get done without the approval of the Head of the House. Not much, was his conclusion.

"I have an appointment with him. Come with me." She offered and was surprised when Theo shook his head.

"Don't risk the Ministry rescinding permission." While he badly wanted to see his father, he had more pressing matters than his own wishes. "I'll give you the documents I need him to sign. Once that's done, I can wait for approval to write."

"Let's have tea." Hermione said faux-placidly. She couldn't do anything yet about the conditions in Azkaban. She wasn't even sure how bad they were. That the prison was horrendously inhumane she didn't doubt. Any administration that thought Dementors were appropriate wouldn't cavil at recreating Bedlam.

Kreacher met them at the door of 12 Grimmauld Place. Theo's hand hadn't touched the wood to knock before the door was yanked open. The house elf welcomed them inside effusively, trying to bow, scrape and kowtow at the same time.

"For Merlin's sake, that is enough." Regulus Black, a stockier, less shop-worn version of Sirius, stepped into the hall in Kreacher's wake. The teenager they had known was still there in his intent look and the set of his mouth. Twenty-two years had broadened him but not greatly changed him.

"Hello." Hermione spoke after they had all stood mute for long enough it had become uncomfortable. "Who do you think we are?"

"I wasn't certain until this moment." He studied their faces. They hadn't been at Hogwarts long and he didn't have a photograph. He'd put his memories of Ophelia and Orpheus in a Pensieve to keep them fresh. And protected after the Dark Lord had returned. "I met Hermione only once, when she was fourteen after my brother's escapade with the rat. All I noticed of her was buck teeth and bossiness."

"Surely you recognised the name." It wasn't her he met but Hermione was still offended about the comment on her overbite.

"Andromeda placed you with the Grangers. I Obliviated her, at her request, so neither of us would know where Nemesia had been fostered." Regulus gestured to the stairs and guided them up to the Black family tapestry.

"You've redecorated." Theo did not mean the décor though the room was far less ornamented that it had been. What he had noticed was the lack of scorch marks on the tapestry. Walburga had been lavish in her displeasure. Her son had repaired the damage.

"I spent almost two years in hiding alone. Plenty of time for reflection." He put a finger on his own name, picked out boldly as the Head of the House. "Mother was ecstatic at my return. Less so at the changes I wished to make. She nearly blasted me off the tapestry when I bailed Sirius from Azkaban."

"He didn't betray James and Lily." Hermione interrupted. Sirius had never received an official pardon for his wrongful imprisonment.

"Of course he didn't. Dumbledore was going to let him rot to keep him from the Potter child. He didn't want any attachments clouding the boy's destiny." Regulus sneered. The old man had known his brother was innocent. "Sirius was so guilt-stricken he did nothing to defend himself. The Ministry used a Legilimens to confirm he wasn't the Secret Keeper."

"I don't expect he was grateful." From what he had seen of Sirius Black at Hogwarts, Theo expected the man to lash out. From Regulus's stony expression he saw he was correct.

"My brother wore his heart on his sleeve, right next to his defiance." He slid his finger across to Bellatrix then down to the name written below her. "I charmed the tapestry. When the Lestranges looked for you there, they saw nothing. But your mother never believed you were dead. It became an obsession for her."

"Why did you take Nemesia?" Hermione couldn't decide whether to say 'her' or 'me' so she settled clumsily on the name.

"To spare you growing up as I had. You were a screaming little pink thing, so alive, so innocent." Regulus's face softened at the recollection. "You always smiled at me. You vomited on Avery. Right in the face. I was proud of you."

"You and Andromeda decided to steal a baby? Just like that?" She was angry. Hermione was not sure exactly why but the idea of snatching a child, even from someone like Bellatrix, was offensive.

"Just like that." He confirmed without shame. "We thought Voldemort would triumph. That Bella would twist you into something terrible. She was already talking of making you into the new Morgana."

"What about my parents?" At his hesitation, she clarified. "The Grangers. Their daughter had just died. You foisted me on them, made them think I was theirs!"

"Andromeda was careful with the Memory Charm. She took away a pain that would never fade and gave them a chance to be a family they would never have had without you." Regulus had expected her to be conflicted but coldly rational as Ophelia had been. Seeing her temper flare now he wondered how tightly the Slytherin girl had wound herself. Berengaria Yaxley had been lucky she'd stopped at a snake.

"I want you to meet them. I want you to explain to the two people who have to live with the memory of losing their daughter twice, why. Just that. Why. Because I can't." Hermione sucked in a breath, relaxing her clenched hands. "We saved Snape and he helped the Grangers so they'll recover. But they'll never be my parents again."

"You have a family." Regulus turned to regard Nott. "I trust I do not have to remind you of the respect due a woman of my House." He would have married Ophelia had she stayed. What life they might have had together he didn't know, couldn't guess. But being married to Hermione Granger would've been a challenge.

"Where's Idra?" Theo did not have to be reminded and refused to be cowed by the boy they'd unstuck from the rafters. He was pleased to see a grimace briefly behind Regulus's aristocratic mask.

"Miss Deverill is upstairs, locked in one of the bedrooms. She is still recuperating. And furious." And betrayed, relieved, exhausted and dreading the future. "I doubt she will be pleased to see you, in any of your incarnations."

"When did you figure it out? That we were the Varinens? Or rather that the Varinens were Hermione and I desperately dissembling." They had put a great deal of effort into not being themselves. Theo would have liked to think they had done a reasonable job of it.

"Not for years." Regulus admitted. "Severus talked me around to thinking you were working for Grindelwald or at least at the behest of his loyalists." He had never been quite comfortable with that idea but it had served as a sop to his pride. "You were both too adept to be the schoolchildren you pretended to be." When they made to object, he shrugged. "Harry Potter, yes, I know. But the first war wasn't a Children's Crusade."

"It wasn't far off." Hermione's dissent was futile, she was aware. Dumbledore hadn't listened to anyone questioning his methods or his choice of sacrificial lamb. The greater good had a dire toll.

"That will change. You'll find all manner of people standing up to extol their own efforts in vanquishing the Dark Lord. And certainly no one would've denounced their own neighbours to save themselves." Realising that people would say anything out of fear had been one of the seeds of his doubt. Regulus had thought the Death Eaters were a bastion of absolute truth. Unassailable. But the lies multiplied like a Gemino.

Neither Theo nor Hermione disagreed. They'd both already seen examples of self-aggrandisement and appropriation. It cynically amused Theo. It outraged Hermione.

"It was the Time-Turner." Regulus drifted back to the earlier question, finding that topic more palatable. "Sirius ranted endlessly about that little trinket. I hadn't considered time magic when I wondered at how completely the Varinen twins had vanished."

"We had to leave. We would've shown up as our real selves on the Marauder's Map." Hermione half-apologised belatedly for their hasty departure.

"Sirius told me about that trick parchment one of the many times he was sottish drunk." His brother's heavy drinking had been a source of great conflict between them. "I told Andromeda and she told Nymphadora, who nicked it from Filch and smuggled it to me." Regulus smirked. "I didn't know who you would be, cousin, but I anticipated you would go to Hogwarts so I modified the Map."

"I showed up on it as Hermione Granger." After Barty Crouch Junior, if her name had been different, it absolutely would've been noticed.

"You would show as whoever you thought you were." A tricky bit of magic but Sirius and his friends had left quite a bit unpolished about their toy. "You believed yourself to be Hermione Granger, thus to the Map, you were. I expect now you would be wavering between Lestrange and Granger."

"There's a lot to waver about." Hermione snapped. "I liked being a Granger. I was happy, except when bastard Slytherins reminded me I was scum." She glared at them both and saw their shame with less triumph than she expected. "How much should we tell Idra? I'd like to keep being a Granger as long as possible."

"That will be a trifle difficult." Regulus confessed. "I told her you were my cousin."

"For fuck's sake!" The profanity burst out before she could restrain herself to a more staid exclamation. "Why did you do that? She was barely conscious and only saw Theo."

"I didn't know what she'd seen." He defended. "I needed to tell her something. She woke up in my home after being scraped off the ground by two students. She wanted answers."

"Surely you could have lied." Theo did not precisely pride himself on the forked tongues of Slytherin House, however duplicity would have been useful in this circumstance.

"I am not particularly good at speaking with witches." Regulus ground out, feeling sixteen again. "I don't get out much and such women as my brother allowed to infest his flat were not there for conversation."

"Does she know about the time travel?" Hermione quelled her temper. Practical, sensible and clever were her watchwords. She could have a tantrum later.

"I don't believe so." The Head of the House of Black gathered his dignity. "I made no mention of the Varinens. I was trying to reassure Miss Deverill she had not been abducted for any nefarious purpose or revenge."

"She's going to have to face the Wizengamot." She didn't know what Idra had done but as a Marked Death Eater, there were bound to be charges. "I know you're fond of her, Theo, but if she runs now she'll be running forever. Turning herself in might get her clemency."

"I think she would prefer to be in Azkaban than to be thought to have fled." Regulus opined, having suffered the witch's ire over his own treason.

"I'll speak to her, if you will allow it." Theo asked permission of his host, who told the lurking Kreacher to escort him to the irascible guest. He left with a parting kiss on Hermione's cheek, which she didn't blush about until she saw Regulus's smile.

"We are hand-fast." She informed him after the door had shut behind Theo. "So you can reign in the feudal nonsense. And I'm not a Black so the woman of my House stuff can go too."

"The bulk of the House of Lestrange is in Azkaban or under the rubble of Hogwarts. There may be some left in France but I doubt they'd embrace you as a kinswoman." Regulus was uncomfortably aware the last times they had met she'd been under age, then a baby, and before that he'd been in love with her.

"Well bully for them." Hermione responded tartly. "I'm not some woebegone foundling."

"You are my cousin. That matters. Not least because I have no children of my own." His eyes strayed to her stomach. "Is it very uncomfortable?"

"Only when they're moving about. It feels like I have a Quidditch team in there." She answered his inquisitive look. "Twin boys, healthy and due in January." Hermione still didn't quite believe it herself. "Why haven't you married?"

"I don't get out much?" Regulus suggested wryly then at her patient expression became more serious. "While my mother was alive, any prospective bride would not have been a witch I would have wanted. Similarly my grandfather and such elder Blacks as lingered would have insisted on choosing a bride for me. So I played up the promise." He held up his hand to show the ring she had given him. "Great Aunt Cassiopeia thought it wonderfully romantic I was being true to my love. She kept the old warlocks from pushing for a marriage."

"I wanted to save your life not keep you hanging." Hermione said remorsefully.

"The water was my first little inkling of curiosity. How could you have known how desperately, madly thirsty I would be in that miserable cave? You did save me. I drank myself sane, washing that damn potion and the Inferi away." He found some humour in it, two decades on. "I've never found anything to rival the freshness of that water."

"It's eau du lac. I bound it out of Black Lake." She revealed, still watching him for signs of pining.

"You aren't a Veela, Ophelia. I'm not obsessed with an idealised form of you." Regulus put a hand on her shoulder, shifting closer to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. "You kept me from death and a fate worse than death. So I owe you a great debt. Please join my family so I can repay you."

"The ring was a gift. Because no one bloody cared." Hermione said fiercely. "And you got Sirius out of Azkaban. That's payment enough. He spent twelve years in that hell-hole."

"He never once thanked me for having him released. My brother maintained Dumbledore would have done it and my only motivation was keeping him from further shaming the family name." He smirked. Wounded lions roared and snarled and padded around their lairs growling.

"No one lifted a finger to help him. They were all so sure he'd done it they put him right out of their minds. No trial." That was something she was going to make sure never happened again. Everyone would get a fair hearing. Even vicious bastards like her biological father. "Well, if we're family, do you have any advice?"

"Give an interview to the Prophet, before someone writes something slanderous. Because they will." He nodded to her belly, hiding his smile. "You know, you outrank Draco in the family hierarchy. Nymphadora, too."

"How does seniority work?" Hermione inspected the sprawling, twisting Black family tree. Too much effort had gone into being so very sure of where they had come from, far too much.

"The Head of the House is the eldest of the senior generation of the name Black." Regulus explained, indicating the names as he spoke. "Phineas then his sister Elladora then her nephew Sirius followed by his brother Arcturus, who passed the mantle to his nephew Arcturus."

"There are plenty of other stars." She muttered.

"A family scandal there. The elder Arcturus came of age and ran off to Paris. Sirius named his first born Arcturus to remind his brother he could be replaced. He came crawling back to marry respectably." None of his relatives had told him explicitly what had happened but a quiet boy who paid attention could learn a lot.

"Charming." Hermione made a face at Sirius Black, 1887-1952.

"Arcturus the nephew was Head of our House for thirty-two years. During his tenure, we all lived as though Salazar Slytherin still dwelt among us." He hadn't realised it at the time but they had become obsolete. Even the other Sacred Twenty-Eight derided them as antiquated. "Then Cassiopeia for not quite two years then myself."

"Who will be the Head of the House after you?" She asked because if the title defaulted to Draco Malfoy she would emigrate.

"A child of my body or any child of Black blood I adopt. Tradition has preferred male heirs but tradition has done so well for us that I will cheerfully ignore it." Regulus touched the name of a witch to the right of his. "Bellatrix is the eldest of my first cousins. As her child, if you took the Black name you would be my successor."

"I'm as good as married." Hermione objected. "You said wedded witches were out of contention."

"Hand-fasting does not count. The Black family does not settle for 'as good as'." He heard his mother in his own voice and groaned. "All regrettable snobbery aside, if you repudiate your claim on the Lestrange estate, you become a Black."

"Andromeda is a widow." She said quietly. Although disowned, she was still a Black and it was doubtful whether she had married Ted Tonks by wizarding rite.

"I would never ask her to cast aside the memory of her husband. He was a good man, and Andromeda would spit in my face at the suggestion. Before cursing me out the door." Regulus hadn't expected to like Ted but the Muggle-born had been honest and restful company the few times he had visited his cousin's home.

"You could get married." Hermione suggested as a loud thump came from upstairs accompanied by raised voices. "It's done Theo's life wonders. All sorts of new people to shout at him and call him names."


	35. Behest

Regulus and Hermione didn't run upstairs but they did saunter briskly to the guest room. The door was open and Theo was fine. Idra was on the floor in a vexed heap massaging her calves. She scowled at her host.

"If I had a wand you'd be paté, Black." She hissed, though most of that was probably pain. The skin of her lower legs was mottled with new and old bruises, the product of magically assisted healing not a beating. It still looked abject.

"You sound hungry. Would you like some more soup?" Regulus inquired with laboured civility, not helping her off the floor. Hermione moved forward to assist but Idra waved her away.

"I can do it. And you shouldn't be straining yourself." The Death Eater wedged her elbows against the mattress behind her and hauled herself back onto the bed. "I think we can say the dizziness has not abated."

"The potion I've been using to dissolve the bone fragments isn't as efficacious as I had hoped." He explained to Theo and Hermione. "I could modify it but increasing the rate of dissolution would put too much calcium in her blood."

"We used a tandem transfusion spell to help with that." Hermione studied the witch's pallor. "Someone with the right blood type can act as a filter, diluting the calcium levels without causing the blood pressure spike you get from the Replenishing potions."

"I know that spell, but we don't have a relative to use. And depending on the patient, it can cause more harm than it mends." Theo helped Idra rearrange the blankets, having proven his point she needed to stay in bed.

"Doesn't need to be family." Hermione gave an impromptu lecture on the ABO blood group system, introducing her fascinated audience to antigens and recessive/dominant inheritance. Theo appreciated this one was far less flummoxing that her discourse on atomic weapons.

"That would explain the results Sanguini obtained." Idra mused then cut herself off abruptly, recalling where she was and why. Her hostile demeanour returned. "Are you truly a Lestrange?"

"Runic tablet and heritage charms confirmed it." Hermione attested. "To my delight." She added sarcastically. "I liked being a Mudblood. Automatic moral high ground."

"And that is a Nott?" The blonde pointed to the other witch's belly. "After you spent a year unchaperoned with Potter and Weasley?"

"Harry, Ron and I had so little food my menstrual cycle stopped." That assertion made the two wizards visibly uncomfortable. "Oh, get over yourselves. It's a simple biological process. Happens to all mammals. It's not taboo or unclean."

"So Muggle." Idra shook her head, astounded at the girl's mannerlessness. "But we have you to thank for that, don't we, Black?"

"Yes, indeed." Regulus confirmed crisply. "I would happily do it again. I find the irony that Bellatrix's daughter helped kill the Dark Lord so delightful I can barely contain myself."

"He would have saved us! It's our duty to protect our society." She didn't shout. She didn't rant. Idra stated the obligation as granite fact.

"That may have been his intention in the beginning but seven Horcuxes later all that was left was hunger." Hermione asserted in return. Whatever Tom had wanted to do for the magical world took a distant second place to his own craving for power.

"Horcruxes?" As a Ravenclaw, her talents had been best used in research and spell development. Idra knew what a Horcux was from her delving into Dark Arts esoterica but had no idea the Dark Lord had put that rite to use.

"You didn't realise he'd made them?" That surprised Hermione. Of course, Tom might've kept his insurance policy secret to all but the inner circle.

"No. We all presumed he returned because of the strength of his will and his magic." Idra had been so determined to uphold her father's legacy, to have his sacrifice acknowledged, that she hadn't considered the precise methods of the Dark Lord's survival. "If it had been general knowledge, far more of us would've ensured our own survival the same way."

"Would you?" Theo asked the woman who had been the closest he had to a maternal figure after his mother had died.

"I think the cost outweighs the benefit." The answer came after considerable contemplation. "There is always a price with the Dark Arts, and rarely the most obvious one. A split soul cannot pass through the veil or manifest as a ghost. It's nothing. It's dross. And the magic it contains is lost forever, diminishing us all."

"We're not going to make you turn yourself in." Hermione spoke for the collective as she assumed she was the most militant on the subject. "I know I should. War hero and all. But if you go quietly, exactly how you escaped can be glossed over."

"I could tell the Ministry Black kept me captive and damn him to Azkaban too." Idra taunted but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't have enough malice left to twist the knife. She didn't have anything left.

"You could." Theo agreed. "But then you'd look like Karkaroff or Lucius Malfoy."

"Crawlers and lickspittles." She found some verve to sneer then collapsed back onto the pillows. "It would be better if I went back as I am now, saying I ran out of potions and had no other recourse. More plausible than striding vigorously into the Ministry in the pink of health."

"You aren't likely to get adequate medical care in Azkaban." Hermione cautioned her. Idra managed a shrug.

"I know. My father died in the cells, at the hands of the Aurors. I understand exactly what I am facing." She looked to Theo, whose face was so impassive he could've been made of porcelain. "We pay our debts, Theodore. Our word is all we have. Beyond magic, beyond blood."

There was little any of them could say to that. Hermione excused herself from tea, pleading tiredness. Regulus took her demur politely and Theo went home with his wife, giving Idra his trust that she would take herself to the Ministry.

Hermione slept the rest of the afternoon away and woke in a dark room alone. She lay in the bed, Theo's bed, and wondered whether she could venture into Diagon Alley for the extra textbooks she needed to take the Divination and Muggle Studies NEWTs. However, given the location of the Wheezes shop, there was a high likelihood she would be seen by a Weasley.

She got up and went to Theo's study to write a quick letter to Harry. It had only been a day. It wasn't likely he had found time to speak to Ron around their training. Assuming Ron was in the Auror program. Harry had mentioned arguments about what to do, how to move forward. Ron might not have accepted Kingsley's offer.

She pushed the door open without knocking and walked in on Theo cleaning the ink off a parchment. While she watched, he started to write then stopped to read what he had written before swearing and erasing it with a charm.

"Who to?" Hermione asked.

"The Prophet. I'm taking Regulus's advice to arrange an interview. I thought I'd get a draft done so we could send it off tonight." Theo flicked his quill into the inkwell and shook his head. "The trouble is all I want to say to them is 'bugger off'."

"I can empathise." Her relationship with the magical press was not amicable. "They were pestering me for an interview, mostly because Harry goes invisible whenever a reporter looks in his direction." Hermione understood why and did not blame her friend for his reticence. "I want to speak to Ron first."

There was a soft pop in the hall then a Nott elf, Hermione thought his name was Wallop, escorted another elf into the study. The second one wore a faded green pillowcase and had perky ears. It held a bright red envelope.

"Go on, Fetch, what does Draco have to say?" Theo didn't take the envelope. It was not an actual Howler, merely the statement of intent. The Malfoys would never be so gauche as to actually send one of the vociferous letters.

"Master Malfoy would like to ask his friend Master Nott why his bloody Floo is shut when Master Malfoy would like to come to Nott Manor to wring Master Nott's scrawny neck." The elf relayed far more timidly than Draco would.

"He couldn't send an owl?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest then winced. Her breasts were tender so her usual stance of disfavour caused her more discomfort than the intended recipient. "Let him in, if you'd like. I don't imagine he has many people to talk to other than his mother."

"Fetch, please tell your Master the Floo is open if he wishes to join us for a light supper." Theo was glad for the distraction from his correspondence. "Wallop, please tell the kitchen elves we'd like something in my drawing room."

The elves left. Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd sent Draco a letter to inform him of his hand-fasting but had left out the name of the witch. He regretted his cowardice now as he would have to explain to both Hermione and his irate friend simultaneously.

"Does he know?" Hermione asked the obvious question.

"Gryffindors." He felt his mouth curve up of its own accord. "Here I was trying to think of a subtle way of broaching I hadn't mentioned you to one of my oldest friends." Theo caught her hand when she poked him. "I thought that news should come in person. I'm not ashamed of you."

"I should think not. I'm a war hero, the brightest witch of my age, an Animagus and tra la la so Sacred Twenty-Eight." Hermione prodded him again. "I'm more worried about you, and the Ferret too, oddly enough. It's no fun to be socially isolated. Story of my life."

"Mine too." Theo sighed. "It's more a friendship of last resort. He and I have so much in common. I don't find him restful company, though. So don't worry about him visiting often. He finds me boring."

"But." She heard the unspoken conjunction.

"Greg is in Azkaban. Vince is dead. Zabini is not welcome in my home. The younger Slytherins are afraid of me and the older ones are either dead, distancing themselves as fast as they can or imprisoned." His library seemed a sanctuary from travail. Walling himself up with his books wouldn't have been such a bad life. "And Draco has it worse. He only got release on probation because of your testimony and Potter's."

"I'm not going to stamp my foot and make you shut the door in his face." Hermione reached out and brushed his hair off his forehead in a fond gesture. "Quid pro quo. You don't hex my friends and I don't hex yours. But I reserve the right to turn into a fox and bite Malfoy. I have only so much patience."

"A fair compromise." Theo stood and hugged his witch. She fit in his arms just right. "I love you." He said softly to her hair, not wanting to hear the words himself and not surprised when she didn't return the sentiment. He felt her stiffen. "It's alright. You needn't."

"I want to say it, because I do." She blinked away stupid tears. "But I want to be sure. Those are important words. I don't want to tell you how much I care, so much, then wake up from this dream alone."

"I'm not Weasley." He met her eyes and saw the first flare of anger that he'd spoken against one of her friends, and saw that flare fade as Hermione conceded the point.

"It hurt when he left. I can rationalise it and I can forgive it but the wound is still there." Hermione put her arms around Theo. "I love you." She said softly and when the world did not end laughed at herself for expecting it might. "I love you, Theo."

"NOTT!" The roar of outrage from the hearth in the drawing room put paid to the intimate moment. Hermione was honestly relieved. She wasn't comfortable talking about her feelings nor it seemed was Theo as he quickly assumed his Slytherin mask to lope downstairs.

"Malfoy." He greeted his friend, who sneered at the ranked dishes on the sideboard and the house elf with the drinks tray. Such things were commonplace. Draco thrust Theo's study group invitation at its author.

"Have you Confounded yourself? Been at the elf wine?" He demanded, irrationally angry about something he could have simply refused because it gave him an outlet. "Granger wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire. And I thought you were bound and determined to flaunt yourself at Hogwarts."

"Circumstances changed." Theo let the blonde rave until he had to pause for breath. He was relieved to hear Draco angry about something. They'd both spent the summer in a numb trance after being released from Azkaban. Watching Aurors ransack their homes without blinking, seeing people turn away from them as though they were unclean. He had fled to Hogwarts to escape his own home. Draco had barricaded himself in Malfoy Manor pretending to be made of ice.

"I won't go back there." Draco noticed he had the letter crumpled in his hand, shoved against his friend's chest. "Why are you wearing that sweater? Don't you dress for dinner any more?"

"We'd gone to see Lovegood this morning. I haven't bothered changing." He watched the other wizard meticulously not react to mention of the Ravenclaw. "She has entirely recovered herself. Her father remains as mad as a spoon."

"Are you possessed?" Draco quietly palmed his wand in case Theo had come down with something enthralling.

"He's fine, Malfoy." The crisp voice with the snotty overtone was familiar and incongruous. "And for the record, I wouldn't piss on anyone who was on fire. I'd use an Aguamenti. Unless it was an electrical or chemical fire. You don't use water to douse those."

"Is this some sort of parole condition?" Draco inquired acidly, returning his wand to his belt. He started to sweat. An icy runnel ran down his spine. He held himself very straight, glaring at Granger peeking around the door. Fear was his constant companion but not yet his regent. "Or private vengeance?"

"A personal truce." Theo soothed. "I meant what I wrote. We can take our NEWTs together quietly." He portioned the information he was divulging like cuisine minceur. Draco's expression showed patently he was having difficulty digesting the idea.

"Why is the glorious heroine not at Hogwarts?" He straightened his tie. Storming over to Nott Manor to have it out with Theo could not be done with Granger gawking. The witch stepped into the room, surprisingly adequately clothed in a blue robe. Someone had finally insisted she wear something decent.

"Circumstances." Hermione answered with a smirk, her hands resting just under her baby bump. Malfoy's grey eyes ghosted over her then to Theo.

"Felicitations." Draco said courteously, watching for the tiniest flicker of expression from his friend's face. When Nott grinned, he knew something was badly wrong. "Never would have thought you would stoop to having the Weasel's leftovers."

"You know, I'd like to take the high road." Hermione said idly, holding up a hand to still Theo when he looked to her for a cue to charge into battle. "We don't need to fight." She told her husband, who heard Ophelia and folded his hands. "I'm sure Theo would like to remain friends with you, cousin."

"The Notts and the Malfoys have not shared a marriage for five generations. Your entanglement with Theo does not entitle you to kinship with me." His selection of words was precise, his gaze on his friend standing impassively beside the Mud...gle-born.

"Kreacher." She said firmly and waited. Hermione didn't have to wait long. The old house elf appeared, almost hopefully.

"Mistress called? What would Mistress Nemesia like Kreacher to do?" He asked avidly. Master Regulus had tasked him with taking extra special care of the young witch, who carried the future of the House of Black.

"Please tell cousin Draco who I am." Hermione requested, confident that while Malfoy wouldn't believe her even with an Unbreakable Vow, he would accept the word of a house elf. The wizarding world was weirdly dependent on the assumption of undying loyalty from people they thought of as furnishings.

"Mistress is Nemesia Invicta Lestrange, daughter of Miss Bella." Kreacher proclaimed proudly, having been given permission by Master Regulus to stop pretending Miss was a Mudblood. It had hurt, stung like needles in his eyes, but he had said the slander. To protect Miss, who had saved bad Master Sirius and good Master Regulus.

"So that basically means, fuck you, Malfoy, for seven years of bullying and taunts." Hermione allowed herself a little gloat then told herself firmly to be a responsible adult. "I only found out a few months ago and we have no real plans to make it public. But as I said, Theo would like to remain friends. The study group would help us all."

"You didn't know when Aunt Bella cut..." Draco heard his blood rush in his ears, the room going white at the edges as he struggled to get enough air. Theo grabbed his arms, steadying him as Granger spoke with excoriating kindness.

"None of us could have done anything differently. I honestly believe our lives have been scripted since Tom Riddle heard Trelawney's prophecy." Time travel had solidified that belief. Some things were inevitable. "One murmur of defiance and my mother would've turned that room into a bloodbath."

"Your mother." He heard his mouth utter and would've jeered at himself for being a simpleton if he hadn't been trapped inside the same body. While no child had ever, ever been mentioned, there had been hints. Draco hadn't asked. Especially after he was old enough to understand why he was an only child.

"Yes." Hermione affirmed. "We're first cousins. Closer kin than I am to Harry or Ron, which I expect is just as boggling to you as it is to me." She smiled ruefully. "I'm sure there's a big chart somewhere in the Ministry with all the lines of relation. It probably looks like a yarn ball by now."

"And you knew?" Draco accused Nott, who shook his head.

"Mad romance." It wasn't even a lie. He wouldn't have stood as readily with Nemesia before the Horned God as he had with Hermione. Theo knew which witch he wanted. "My father is her godfather and he never knew. We found out with a heritage charm."

"Checking for a squib lineage to make the mésalliance more palatable?" Rummaging for a suitable pure-blood ancestor for a new bride had been done more often than many families would admit. Draco felt less shattered as the mundanities cemented the cracks.

A 'mad romance' was often code for drunken indiscretion, though he guessed from the timing that they were more likely to have been intoxicated with relief in the aftermath of battle. If he'd had a willing witch, he might well have celebrated being not dead the same way. Why she had told the truth was a different conundrum.

"You could have passed it off as Weasley's." Draco found his mouth dry. Theo poured them all a drink and made convivial motions towards the food. They sat down to stare at the dainties provided. The Nott elves might not be pleased with the young Master but they were very eager for the Mistress to eat.

"And what would Ron have assumed when I gave birth to a dark haired child?" Hermione took a stuffed egg and bit. The filling was nutty and mild. Good for an unsettled stomach. She had another one, glancing up to see the rebirth of Malfoy's smirk.

"That the baby was Potter's." A tragic love affair had no appeal for him but a coolly rational choice he could understand. He helped himself to some crudités. His appetite had not returned. Anxiety seemed to have poisoned his stomach. Nott, Draco noticed sourly, tucked into the Parma ham lushly.

"I've seen quite enough pyrotechnics already. No need to ignite more." She regarded Malfoy and thought about making statements. "We're having twins. Would you be one of the godfathers?"


	36. Bamboozle

On Saturday just before lunch, Theo found his witch staring pensively out into the garden from the nursery window. It was raining, turning the thoughtless formality of the Nott gardens blowsy.

"Box hedges exist to make it obvious you have gardeners." Hermione opined, disliking the faultless severity. "I could ask Neville for his opinion. Molly too, assuming she doesn't hate me. The Burrow garden is lovely."

"Mother was the last person to do anything about the grounds. She planted a rose bower on the south lawn. All different colours. I remember the breeze blowing the petals." Theo stared at the geometric precision of the hedges, gravel and statuary. "Father tore it all down after the funeral. It's just grass now."

"Do you like gardening?" She didn't, particularly. Looking at plants, knowing about them, yes. Tilling mulch not so much.

"I like looking at the result." He kissed the back of her neck. She had her hair up but it was struggling loose from the braiding charm. "There'll be many people looking for work. We can hire some to remodel the grounds. Father did the same, albeit with the outbuildings, after the first war."

"That's unexpectedly altruistic." Hermione contemplated why a Death Eater would employ wizards to do busy work. "Oh, I see. Younger sons and the destitute. All dependants of his cronies."

"We look after our own." Theo agreed. After the end of the first wizarding war, the Notts had survived relatively unscathed. Many traditional families had not been as fortunate.

His father was Marked but had been more valuable to Tom as a financier than a warrior. Nothing could be proven other than collaboration, and after Tristan Nott had given generously to reconstruction funds even those charges had been dropped. The Wizengamot's excuse for their graft was more prosecutions would only cause pain. The people were tired of the trials, weary of the war and just wanted to return to their ordinary lives.

"The fines were pretty damn punitive this time." She had been astounded by the amounts the Death Eater families had been expected to pay. That some could, without bankrupting themselves, was phenomenal.

"The Ministry didn't touch the scholarship vault my father endowed. We'll be able to support any who ask." And they would ask. Perhaps not immediately but like the previous war, the Ministry would not hurry to help those who had made it look incompetent.

"And thus build a base of loyalty and obligation ready for the next war." Hermione thought about Gideon and Fabian Prewett, and George and Fred Weasley. The guilt of the survivors. "I'm going to use the household accounts to help anyone I can. Starting with the Muggle-borns. We'll lose them otherwise. They'll go back to the non-magical world and we'll be worse off for it."

"Andromeda will be here shortly. I'm sure she'll want to help." Theo had acceded to Regulus's request that the Black family reunion be held at Nott Manor, comfortably neutral ground. The revelation of Nemesia's existence had rubbed many old scars. Everyone wanted answers.

Except Theo. He was content to leave the Blacks to their collective feuds. Unfortunately that would mean Hermione weathering the tempest alone, which he could not endure. So into the storm he would go.

"How much petulant screaming can I allow myself?" Hermione asked rhetorically. She didn't intend to lose her temper but meeting all the Blacks at once was going to be taxing. It wasn't her idea. Regulus had told Andromeda and Draco had told Narcissa. The sisters were frantic to meet their niece.

"How upset are you that you didn't have a childhood of ridiculous indulgence and paranoia?" Theo asked, rubbing the small of her back. "Nemesia would likely have gone to Beauxbatons if the Lestranges had obtained custody. Or you could've grown up with Draco being awkwardly ignored by Lucius until Tom returned."

"I can bear having had a comfortable middle class life. Ballet lessons were unpleasant but I loved the museums. My parents and I were looking at good secondary schools before I got my Hogwarts letter." She breathed in slowly, meditatively, searching for inner peace. It wasn't there. "I wasn't sure what I wanted to study at uni. I quite liked the idea of being a scientist. Or an engineer."

"Once you graduate, Masters across Europe will be owling you to offer Apprenticeships." He smiled at the prospect. "Proper research, done somewhere surrounded by peers keen to learn not just play Quidditch." Theo wasn't sure what he would do with himself. He didn't expect any offers. "Once I restore the Nott library, you could host an intellectual salon."

"What's wrong with the library?" Hermione was instantly distracted from her own worries with concern over the books. An old family like the Notts could have accumulated thousands of rare volumes.

"The Ministry sent people in to cleanse it of banned tomes. They left a maelstrom." The elves had tidied up the worst of the disarray but checking the collection for losses and damage needed to be done by a witch or wizard. Or several. "But NEWTs first."

"And babies." Hermione reminded him. She needed to keep reminding herself, despite the back ache and random twinges. She wasn't even that big yet but her hips felt like they were shaking loose. Theo strayed a hand to her bump and kissed her again.

"I haven't forgotten." He was quietly terrified but was spared having to confess his trepidation by the chime of the Floo alarm. They went downstairs to greet their guests.

Andromeda Tonks and Nymphadora Lupin had arrived first, the former in drab mourning robes, the latter in a purple coat with matching hair. When she saw Hermione, the Auror rushed to her, hugging her tightly then inspecting her.

"When mum said, wow!" Tonks laughed, quirking her eyebrows at the borrowed robe. "Welcome to the nut-house." She hugged the girl again, still not believing. "You look good. Pity about the pasty git beside you."

"Madam Lupin." Theo inclined his head to the exact degree courtesy demanded. The Metamorphmagus made a literal pig nose at him before dragging Hermione to Andromeda, who had been decorously perusing the kintsugi pottery in the curio.

"Teddy will love having playmates." She slung an arm over Hermione's shoulder, in a somewhat more subtle show of protection than Harry's outright threats. "When's the last time we had twins in the family?"

"Phineas Nigellus's grandmother was one of two, I believe." Andromeda spoke languidly, watching her niece with a deceptive air of calm. She and Regulus had spoken extensively, both expecting to be berated by the family at large for their actions. For her part, she didn't care. Nemesia had been safe and loved and left to become herself not a plaything for a madman.

"I understand." Hermione said quietly. "I'm not ready to say I'm happy, but for what it's worth there's nothing to forgive except what you did to the Grangers."

"I would have raised you myself, except I dreaded seeing Bella in you." The haggard witch studied the young woman before her. "There's some of her in you. You're a lucky mix of Lestrange and Black. If I'd known how you would look, I might have risked it. You were too precious to be gifted with someone else's resentment."

Hermione was glad the Floo chimed, cutting off a probably not-very-witty remark about being given a full load of derision over her Muggle birth she could have done without. She didn't think growing up aware of magic would have lessened her wonder at it. It would probably have blunted some of her urge to constantly prove herself though.

"Harry!" She exclaimed, surprised when her friend stepped through. He wasn't alone. Ron was fast behind him, dusting off the soot and looking around at the parlour with a scowl.

"Expecting more skulls?" Tonks joked. The room was big, full of fancy foreign china and stuffy chairs.

Ron didn't answer her. He'd seen Hermione and all the things he'd planned to say, proper grown-up questions he'd meant to ask just blew away. She didn't look as thin or as tired as she'd been when they'd had their last barney. The pinched look her face got when she was trying not to be angry wasn't there. That was good. Pretty much nothing else was.

"Blimey, you weren't kidding, Harry." He said that to say something. Hermione was definitely up the duff. And there was bloody Nott smirking like he'd done something clever. His fists itched. But he'd promised Harry he wouldn't go spare. Sodding time travelling fairies.

"Ron." Hermione found her breath and her voice. She didn't expect her former sort of boyfriend to crush her in a tight embrace.

"It'll all be okay, 'Mione. Don't worry. We'll sort this out." He promised, glowering hexes at Nott over her shoulder. "I mean it's all terrible but we're together on this just like always."

"Thanks." She tried not to snivel, a huge weight lifting. Hermione had less success in ignoring the little voice in her head asking precisely what had Harry said to perform this miracle of Weasley-wrangling. "I need to talk to your mum, to everyone."

"I've told them." Ron left out the bit where the whole Burrow had overheard him shouting. "They're all on your side. That's why Mum and Dad wanted me to come here today when we heard about this Black lunch."

"What?" Hermione pulled back a little, looking from Ron to Harry. "Why?"

"So they don't try to badger you into agreeing to anything." Harry explained. "When Sirius made me his heir I got tangled up in all sorts of trusts and vaults. He was disowned like Mrs Tonks but there's some old stuff that can't be taken away." He grinned, pleased the Slytherins wouldn't be getting their own way. "So Regulus can't ignore me."

"And I'm here because Dad's mum was a Black. So I'm your something cousin." Ron raised his voice when he heard the Floo, ensuring that the Malfoys and Regulus Black heard this declaration.

"Mister Weasley is our second cousin." Narcissa Malfoy made an airy gesture to include Regulus, Andromeda and herself. "That hardly qualifies you to intrude. Not least because you were not invited."

"Actually, I asked Harry and Ron to come along." Tonks flicked her bright hair out of her eyes, giving her aunt a lupine grin. "Even up the numbers." She shot a challenging look at Theo, who raised no objection. Nor would he, in front of Hermione. He'd already reconciled himself to Potter and Weasley cluttering his home.

"Now we are all here, perhaps some refreshments?" Hermione suggested as she was hungry and wanted to divert everyone before they drew wands. The quietly awkward family luncheon she had envisioned now looked like a prelude to war.

Wizarding table etiquette was Byzantine and the unexpected guests would have disarranged the seating any way, which made it fortunate Hermione and Theo had opted for a buffet. The circle of comfortable chairs each had a low table beside it so everyone could eat at a loafing pace. That suited Hermione and meant the house elves didn't have to wait attendance.

Narcissa was too polished to frown at the casual repast. She assumed Theodore was quietly telling his social circle he did not wish to entertain formally. His father would have never accepted anything less than a full service meal. Perhaps his new wife was to blame for them dining en famille. Which might also be someone making a point.

Hermione spent the first half of the meal refereeing between Ron, Harry, Malfoy and Theo. Her husband was biting his tongue, she could tell. Regulus too was noticeably reserved. Tonks chatted, mostly at Narcissa, who made pointed comments in return. Andromeda acted as the voice of reason with such finesse that Hermione didn't notice her steering the conversation until she prompted Ron to ask the important question.

"What are you going to say to that bastard Lestrange?" He demanded, his harsh tone a legacy from his exchange with Malfoy. She could see both her friends trying to play it cool. They were here for her, to ensure the older Blacks didn't manipulate her into being a figurehead. And in Ron's case to try to push every one of Theo's buttons.

"I don't know." Hermione answered candidly. "I've given it a great deal of thought. I don't expect him to be particularly rational." Malfoy muttered an assent and was hastily shushed by his mother. "I probably won't say much beyond telling him who I am."

"You could renounce him. A wizarding oath to your father would cut you off from his family." Regulus urged with subtle force. But it mattered too much for him to feign disinterest well. Hermione frowned.

"You know, you could have kids of your own." She didn't like the quiet hunger Regulus, Narcissa and Andromeda seemed to share. There was discord between mother and daughter too, as Tonk's hair flashed red briefly before returning to purple.

"Remember what Parvati's mum wrote?" Harry was surprised Hermione had forgotten what they had discovered during their Third Year when it seemed everyone was trying to break into Hogwarts. It took him a moment to realise he was speaking to the wrong Hermione. "You said yourself that Dark Magic was like radiation then Seamus made a joke about lead-lined underpants."

"Madam Gupta-Patil is an authority on the deleterious effects of Dark Magic." Regulus did not air his personal opinion of the witch, who had been a staunch supporter of the Ministry raids against suspected Death Eaters. "She is an accomplished Healer, who has written several treatises on curses. Which makes it difficult to refute her conclusion that a factor in the reduced fertility of pure-blood families is our exposure to what she calls 'accumulations of contaminated artefacts'."

"Yes, of course." Hermione covered her lapse with a shrug. "Sorry, baby brain." She rubbed her stomach, not wanting to overplay her excuse. Theo got up and brought her a cup of peppermint tea. "I simply don't like everyone hovering over me waiting to stake a claim."

The expressions of her relatives were a spectrum from Tonks's indulgent amusement to Draco's chary watchfulness. No one called her out. Narcissa ate a canapé with frigid calm. She had dined with Voldemort, nothing now could ruffle her. Andromeda was not so frosty.

"We want the best for our House." She flicked a tolerant glance at the interlopers Harry and Ron, who didn't give a toss for the Black family name, before assaying a soothing smile at Hermione. Who gave her a honed Ophelia stare in return. "You want bluntness? Very well. Regulus and Draco have poisoned themselves with the Dark Mark. Nymphadora married a werewolf. I am a widow and Narcissa might as well be. So we hover because your sons are our best hope."

"Because there's not enough barmies in the world." Ron muttered into his ribbon sandwich. He took the assembly of glares from everyone except Harry and Tonks with insouciance. "Sorry, 'Mione, but you've got to admit you're worried about having a mini-Bellatrix. I'm sure Nott's got some inherited oddness just waiting to show itself."

"Like your family's poverty?" Draco asked, automatically vicious.

"That's right, Malfoy." The ginger wizard agreed grinning without humour. "I hear it's catching too." Ron had a pretty solid idea of how much the Malfoys had been stung by the Ministry. They were lucky they still had their ancestral pile. He couldn't resist another dig. "Want some tips on how to stretch a Knut?"

Lunch didn't last much longer after that. Narcissa and Draco left before causing a scene. Tonks hustled Harry and Ron out, the latter pointedly inviting Hermione alone to the Burrow. Andromeda issued a general invitation to her home and received one in return from Theo. Regulus left some parchments for his cousin then excused himself politely.

They packed up the left-overs and took them to the solarium on the third floor. The windows were enchanted with a view of a summer meadow complete with brook and butterflies. Spreading a blanket on the floor, Theo arranged cushions for his witch before lounging.

"Ron and Harry are up to something." Hermione remarked as she settled in. Her statement got an affirmative noise from the wizard with his mouth full. "And Draco noticed something off about me not knowing about Gupta." Another sound of agreement. "I want to read her books."

"They should be readily available. Your other self might have a copy of them." He said after he'd swallowed the dolmades he had been enjoying. McGonagall had discreetly returned the belongings they had left in the Eighth Year dorm. "Would you like to move from Nott Manor?"

"I think so." She appreciated his perspicacity in following her line of thought. "If exposure to Dark curses and items causes long term health effects, I'd prefer not to live here. At least until you cleanse the place."

"That would be difficult for a Varinen." Theo had been keeping himself from arguing with the Gryffindors by silently assessing how many of his Manor's wards he could alter or remove. Some, was his best current estimate. "It may be better to empty the furniture and contents to let the building bleed off the ambient residue."

"I don't want to make you metaphorically chuck everything on the lawn." Hermione was conscious this was Theo's home. He smiled at her, offering a bowl of strawberries.

"It's something that has been in the back of my mind since the end of the war. My father is never getting out of Azkaban. If I want to make a fresh start, I need to step out of his shadow." He said. He did not say he wanted his wife and his children to live in his ancestral home, despite it being his fondest wish. "You need to mind your parents' house. We can shift there, read Gupta's theorems and plan."

"I'd like to go to the Burrow tomorrow." She wasn't asking permission, but she wasn't announcing it as fact either. "You really won't be welcome."

"Nor should I be." Theo shifted closer to feed Hermione a strawberry. "Regardless of how we changed the Battle, I still fought against the Weasleys. Loving you doesn't absolve me."

"It will." Hermione vowed. "I will bring you into the light." She smiled. "I'll drag you if I have to, and defend you. A brave new world." Her fingers interlaced with his. "Together."

"Together." He agreed, sealing the vow with a strawberry flavoured kiss.


End file.
